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@breadbin Ok, so you see the thing I'm standing in, the rope round my foot? That's attached to the mast at my waist with a round turn and two half hitches. Unloaded it means I can slide it up and down, but if I load it (by standing up), it seizes.

I am wearing a climbing harness. The harness is tied into the mainsail halyard (the rope we normally use to raise the sail). When I stand up in my leg loop, it creates slack in the halyard, which @zoeimogen then takes in on the winch (which is also ratcheted). Then when she has taken all the slack in, I unload the leg loop, slide it up, stand up and repeat, until I am at the top of the mast.

To get down, she has to release the ratchet and then slowly let the halyard run through the system, lowering me and using the friction in the system as a brake.