This will prevent a hard day’s work untangling your riggings from the guy wires, should the board break.
Tripping Riggings on Top of Stack
After drawing your rigging to the top, the board drawn tight up to the block on top of the stack, pull on the gimblet wire that is attached to the end of the board. This motion brings the end of your board bearing the hook and rigging up. In some cases, the stack being small in diameter and the board being too long, the hook will stick far out from the stack, and with all hard efforts will not lodge it over the top. When you have this proposition to contend with, leave the stack about three or four inches on the gimblet wire that holds the board tight to the block on the stack. In some cases you have to drop the board as far as from two to three feet below the block, in order to get your hook in a position where it will settle over the top of the stack with the hooked part inside of the stack.
This is very important. Be sure that the hook is not only setting on top. This can be determined by twisting all four lines, making them one bundle; then by giving the lines a few switchings back and forth in all directions. When this is done and you have fully convinced yourself that the hook is properly over the top, then your next move is to start for the top.
If it is your first time in a boatswain chair, I would suggest that you sound yourself first as to dizziness. This can very easily be done by the following method:
Stand along the side of the stack, throwing your head to one side and looking up, allowing your eyes to follow the stack and the clouds, shaking the head at different times. This brings on dizziness. Then stand erect, so as to clear your head. After getting into the boatswain chair, you place the fall line of your riggings—that is, the line with which you draw yourself up—between your legs. This enables you and your helper to pull more steadily together, and you get to the top much quicker.
I have noticed that the majority of stack men regard this as the most difficult part of the job—drawing to the top. Once up, the job is half done.
After you reach the top of the stack, the first thing to be done is to cut away the string that holds the stack hook to the board. You then lower the board to the ground. Still tied by the wire to the board for further use in case you want to trip off with it when the job is finished.