What a beautiful ship the Nor'Sea 27 is! Boarding ladders built in/on the rudder are a pretty standard feature of the Cape Cod Catboats, partly because the rudder is so large and robust. I added cheap aluminum mast steps to my 18' CCB The Old Cat and they worked great. She had three very heavy sets of pintels and gudgeons. I moved "down" to my M15 "Rejoyce" because I was getting too old and frail to handle the large and powerful 271 square feet of canvas in a single sail.