Boarding ladder options

[paul.paul]

Having now agreed to buy a Sabre my mind has turned to making upgrades. It's not clear to me (looking at photos of Sabres with boarding ladders) what style of fixing (horizontally bolted through the transom, or looped over, so vertically) that people have preferred (as I'm only working off photos it's not clear that there's even space for the latter). Advice please!

Paul

[ken endean]

Whatever type of fixing you go for, it's worth choosing a ladder that can extend so that its bottom rung is well below water level - whether you want to swim off the boat or use it in a man overboard situation.

[Keith 66]

I recently replaced the boarding ladder on our boat, it was a cheap folding one that was bolted on at the top only.
It was replaced by a decent one that came out of a skip! Four stud fixing through the transom, It is worth remembering that the deck & rear of cockpit moulding has a gap of approx 40mm between it & the transom, on our boat this was filled with expanding foam that was totally waterlogged. This necessitated cutting the rear of the cockpit moulding out to remove it. If bolting through the coaming you need to fill the area bolted solid with filler or use compression sleeves otherwise you wont get fixings tight.

[paul.paul]

I'm still gestating this boarding ladder question. I think I'm inclined to install against an inboard plate (perhaps hardwood) to spread the load. I'm not sure tightness of the through bolts is very necessary; snugness should suffice so there won't be any significant compression. Notwithstanding Keith's experience I might even squirt a bit of foam in, just to further spread the load. It'd only be a small quantity and there doesn't seem any good reason why it should subsequently become wet as long as evrything's sealed properly. Yes I agree that a long (5 step) ladder is desirable, possibly even vital if one's tired.