|
dynoho
May 28, 2008, 10:40 PM
Post #76 of 81
(674 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Jul 16, 2006
Posts: 285
|
Yeeeeessssss!
C.A. will be thrilled.
|
|
|
|
|
healyje
May 28, 2008, 11:38 PM
Post #77 of 81
(665 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Aug 22, 2004
Posts: 4204
|
Personally, I find this to be one of several recurring and overblown 'safety' topics in climbing these days. I mean - my god! - how did we ever manage to climb before belay loops? About how many biners do you suppose have been broken by cross / tri loading on rappel or in a belay?
Could it conceivably happen? Sure. You could also die driving to the crag and I suspect if you belayed and rapped with the biner through your harness loops for the rest of your life you'd still be at far, far greater risk every time you got in your car to go climbing to do it. I'd further speculate that thousands of times more climbers are hurt by the improper use of belay devices properly fastened to belay loops than by biners breaking due to cross / tri loading on harness loops.
Are there times and circumstances when it's smart to take advantage of the belay loop? Again, sure, I do when roped soloing and rapping with loads, and at times in awkward multipitch belay situations. I'm actually pretty ambivalent about it for rapping - not a lot of reasons not to use the belay loop - but belaying, there some devices I find are best oriented and controlled for belaying using the harness loops rather than the belay loop.
In this day and age of incredibly engineered climbing gear I'd say many elements of our gear are designed to 'idiot-proof' climbers against the statistics of the sheer numbers of their demographic. Climbers would do well to put a bit more energy into skill and craft development rather than simply investing in an understanding rooted in inflexible and rout rules - that's fine to get started, but beyond that a deeper understanding of the 'why' behind these types of issues will serve you better.
(This post was edited by healyje on May 28, 2008, 11:52 PM)
|
|
|
|
|
stymingersfink
May 28, 2008, 11:51 PM
Post #78 of 81
(655 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Aug 12, 2003
Posts: 7250
|
healyje wrote: Personally, I find this to be one of several recurring and overblown 'safety' topics in climbing these days. I mean - my god! - how did we ever manage to climb before belay loops? About how many biners do you suppose have been broken by cross / tri loading on rappel or in a belay? Could it conceivably happen? Sure. You could also die driving to the crag and I suspect if you belayed and rapped with the biner through your harness loops for the rest of your life you'd still be at far, far greater risk every time you got in your car to go climbing to do it. I'd further speculate that thousands of times more climbers are hurt by the improper use of belay devices properly fastened to belay loops than by biners breaking do to cross / tri loading on harness loops. Are there times and circumstances when it's smart to take advantage of the belay loop? Again, sure, I do when roped soloing and rapping with loads, and at times in awkward multipitch belay situations. I'm actually pretty ambivalent about it for rapping - not a lot of reasons not to use the belay loop - but belaying, there some devices I find are best oriented and controlled for belaying using the harness loops rather than the belay loop. In this day and age of incredibly engineered climbing gear I'd say many elements of our gear are designed to 'idiot-proof' climbers against the statistics of the sheer numbers of their demographic. Climbers would do well to put a bit more energy into skill and craft development rather than simply investing in an understanding rooted in inflexible and rout rules - that's fine to get started, but beyond that a deeper understanding of the 'why' behind these types of issues will serve you better.
|
|
|
|
|
Tree_wrangler
May 29, 2008, 5:01 PM
Post #80 of 81
(608 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Feb 8, 2007
Posts: 403
|
In reply to: About how many biners do you suppose have been broken by cross / tri loading on rappel or in a belay?
I wanted to educate myself, since I had the same question in mind. I use dial-up, so I won't pretend that my search was really that thorough, but.....
There has been no thread on RC.com that I can find EVER that has referred to a 'biner breaking due to triaxial loading in the field. Just endless comments about how dangerous it is.
If you google (with multiple tries, different parameters), you'll get only 1-5 results, tops. None of which were actual documentation of 'biners breaking due to triaxial loading...they were just more internet comments along the lines of "triaxial loading kills!", etc. Most results were completely unrelated to carabiners at all, (they were industrial specs, and that sort of thing)
I found one obscure reference, after much looking, to a hanggliding accident in which a carabiner had failed, and someone had theorized triaxial loading to be the cause.
If anyone has documentation of a real-world, in-field incident, regardless of whether or not someone was injured, etc., I would be interested in reading it, as I don't plan on wasting any more time (with dial-up) searching the topic.
In reply to: In this day and age of incredibly engineered climbing gear I'd say many elements of our gear are designed to 'idiot-proof' climbers against the statistics of the sheer numbers of their demographic. Climbers would do well to put a bit more energy into skill and craft development rather than simply investing in an understanding rooted in inflexible and rout rules
And my original posts were a vague stab at healyje's summation, ignoring the whole harness-discussion-fiasco for the moment.
|
|
|
|
|
ptlong
May 29, 2008, 5:55 PM
Post #81 of 81
(601 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Oct 4, 2007
Posts: 418
|
I wonder if accidents associated with triaxial loading might simply be classified under cross loading?
Afterall, the problem with triaxial loading is the cross load component of the force. If the angle between the axes is small and aligned with the carabiner major axis you don't have much of a problem. Tom Jones (formerly at BD) pointed this out about diaper seat harnesses some time ago. In a fall, the climber's body and harness tend to deform in such a way as to minimize what appears to be a risk of triaxial loading.
On the previous page there's a cartoon which shows triaxial loading in harness sans belay loop -- so how much is the carabiner weakened? The specs for minor axis strength are printed right on carabiners. But quantifying the force for triaxial loading failure is more complicated since you need to specify how "triaxially" loaded it is.
I've used harnesses without belay loops and sometimes saw the carabiner flip into a cross loading orientation. All my new harnesses have belay loops and I more frequently see the carabiner rotate while I belay, sometimes getting stuck sideways at the gate. With respect to cross loading of the belay carabiner I personally haven't found belay loops to be a significant improvement.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
