Safety Aloft with Harken Training

A few years ago, I signed up for a fitness class at a climbing gym. Their policy was that before they could register me in their system to even enter the gym, they had to teach me how to use belaying systems and fall safety techniques. I wasn’t even there to climb, but that was the rule.

These days, in pretty much any instance where your feet leave the ground, you sign a waiver and get some kind of training—except for going up a mast. Sure, everyone does it the way they were taught by someone or other once upon a time, but there isn’t really any standardization and no official best practices beyond common knowledge and recommendations from other folks at your boatyard. In any other job that has people working up off the ground, there are regulations—the window washers at the Empire State Building certainly aren’t doing it how their dad taught them way back when—but even the rigging pros don’t have a training course, let alone the rest of us.

Enter Working Aloft. Though best known for their world class sailing hardware, Harken has announced a program that aims to tackle this niche head on. Through Harken U, the brand has invested heavily in creating courses to help pros better use and maintain their gear. They are now in the early stages of expanding their offerings to include training at height.

It’s a natural outgrowth of the company’s diversification over the last several years into the aerial safety equipment sector—think first responders, firefighters, search-and-rescue personnel, electrical workers, and others whose jobs routinely take them to heights. The same characteristics that Harken develops in its sailing gear—lightweight, low-friction, able to withstand difficult environmental conditions—are required in these aerial settings, so the two naturally complement each other.

Piloting the program in a few American courses and a sailing hotspot in France, they sourced expertise from first responders and marine professionals to create a practicum of safety guidelines, gear, and best practices. The two-day course covers optimal climbing techniques, equipment comparisons, fall protection systems, rescue management, and how to do it alone or as part of a team.

It’s a matter of “you don’t know what you don’t know,” according to Harken’s Director of Marketing Strategy Bill Faude. “A lot of people’s big fear when they’re up the mast is falling, but they don’t realize that something as simple as harness fatigue can cause loss of consciousness,” he says. “Or, if there are two halyards—a primary and backup—on that person who’s unconscious aloft, how do you get to them if they have a medical emergency up there?”

Despite the horror stories, in comparison to other marine accidents, fatalities aloft are relatively uncommon. Still, the fear of heights adds stress to even a simple job, potentially making it more dangerous. Once something goes wrong, the Harken program stresses that having the discipline to stop and assess the situation is crucial to a positive outcome.

“Discipline over your emotions when taking control of a situation is part of how you get a positive outcome,” says Nate Paulsberg, a first responder, former firefighter, and the U.S. general manager of Elevated Safety, which Harken acquired in 2018 to be service and training provider for its safety and rescue program. “You have to have processes in place. Preplanning what you’re doing, preplanning what could go wrong, and just seeing it hands-on helps you come through those situations. Otherwise, if you’re not trained and don’t have a go-to plan, things can go very badly.”

Though at press time there weren’t any upcoming open enrollment courses scheduled in the United States, we can expect to see programs on the schedule as early as this summer. Additionally, companies or organizations can schedule individual training courses for their employees.

According to Faude, one logistical challenge with running a program like this is the infrastructure—for the open enrollment courses, securing a boat for students to learn on can be highly dependent on the owner’s schedule and preferences. Instead, Harken’s Orlando Elevated Safety facility has installed a fixed structure that simulates a mast or cell tower (their training programs extend beyond the marine community).

“One thing that differentiates us as a training company is that we try to avoid a sterile training environment,” says Paulsberg. “As you can imagine, things are different in the situation that you’re training for. Every boat is different: where things are placed, how high the mast is, what other hazards are present…it’s always ideal to get out on the boat that you’re going to be working on.”

Still, the fixed mast gives them options for running more courses and bringing this kind of training to recreational sailors, not just the pros.

To that end, Harken is consciously considering that the market for this course contains several different populations, from recreation sailors looking to work on their own boats to professional riggers all the way up to superyacht techs. They intend to tailor the curriculum for each course so that the students are getting information that’s appropriate for their specific needs.

“In the end, the safety of yourself and your crew depends on preparedness,” says Paulsberg. “Change is hard, and unfortunately a lot of the change that actually gets instituted only happens because a disaster has happened first. But this is an opportunity to get in ahead of it, avert that disaster. Our goal is to give participants techniques, practice, and a clean, efficient plan that they can actually use when the time comes.”

To find more information on upcoming courses, visit elevatedsafety.com.