Three years ago we had a Facebook discussion about boarding/swimming ladders for Impalas and I finally got one sorted for Fly this year…
I wanted something permanently mounted that played nicely with any angle of rudder, so quite slim/low-profile and not requiring removal to sail, and here it is! Modified Lalizas LA-99502 ladder from Marine Scene, with my key additions being:
- White acetal wedges to accommodate the curve of the transom at the mounting points, with substantial GRP backing pads behind.
- New black acetal end caps I turned on the lathe to replace the brittle hard plastic ones that broke straight away.
- Teak step/standoff that serves the dual function of spacing the narrow second-from-top step off the transom and providing something less toe-dependent to stand on (NB the bottom two steps are below the transom, so require neither stand-offs nor extension).
I also drilled tiny drain holes in the tubular top step and am likely to replace the two machine screw pivots with slightly longer bolts sometime because they’re marginal for the nyloc nuts as supplied.
So how does it work? Just great, even if I say so myself! While I typically leave it folded up when boarding/leaving the boat alone and just stand on the tubular step, it’s been much appreciated by all when fully deployed and of course I’d use it like that myself for swimming or kayaking. Have to say the ladder should come with stand-offs when it clearly needs them and is not well implemented as supplied, but can be transformed with some thought and work into something elegant and practical.