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Category: Skills
-
Lanyards
Lanyards
On the implications of being attached to planet Earth.
Call them what you will:
- Tether
- Cowstail, cowtails, cowtail
- Personal anchor system (PAS)
- Quick attachment safety (QAS)
Weird names and fancy acronyms don’t imply intentional design.
Gravity of the Situation
“Even though cowstails are short, the choice of dynamic rope is very significant in their ability to absorb energy in unplanned falls.” ~Richard Delaney
A fall on your tether is one of the worst case scenarios for your SRT gear. Being above your anchor by any amount has severe consequences.
In lead climbing, a serious factor-2 fall dissipates energy with more rope and a second human+harness.
Why do we clip?
Known-Known: You”re a clumsy skeleton wearing an magic electrical meat suit.
Known-Unknown: Waterfalls can be slippery. Completely unprovoked meteor strikes and sky-rocks. That tiny traverse you’re on decides to crumble to dust because geologic time includes now.
Unknown-Unknown: A squirrel being chased by a mountain lion leaps into your jacket. (Black Swan)
“Are we all agreed on the purpose of the tether?” ~Blake Douglas
Tether Motivation
You’re always one decision away from living a completely different life. Clipping may not bring you comfort. But if you hang out at anchor stations enough, you will eventually see a tether work. Here’s some solid reasons to clip yourself to solid ground:
- Feel more comfortable (You’re scared)
- Make your friends comfortable (They like you and you’re generous with gas money.)
- Actually not falling to your death
Instant Gratification Recipe
The Perfect Cowstail
Ingredients
- 10mm dynamic rope
- Carabiner for short cowstail
- Carabiner for long cowstail
- Rope cutting tools
Figure-8: The bight should only be large enough to barely slip onto your d-link.
Poachers Knots: Set at each end, so they stay secure and tend to hold the carabiners in place. Set the knot by tensioning load and tail strands.
Short Length: Exactly 45cm (Maybe? todo) from the inside of the loop to the inside of the carabiner. This will lengthen after a few uses, and also shrink after a few wet-dry cycles. This length is explained in the diagram below (todo).
Short Carabiner: Lightweight, strong, perfect for clipping a hanger. perhaps locking (See below).
Long Length: Perfectly tuned to your body, so you can just barely reach the top of your chosen ascender. This will lengthen after a few uses, and also shrink after a few wet-dry cycles.
Long carabiner: Ovals give you more options for ascending devices and tend to perform better outside of a laboratory.
Tail lengths: At least 7cm (todo).Locking Carabiner?
The book “Risk: A User’s Guide” describes a double-bind faced by officers designing training programs for the Armed Forces.
Realistic training scenarios where soldiers are more likely to be hurt, even killed, deliver better field outcomes and potentially save more lives in battle. However, training staff are often discouraged from designing realistic trainings to avoid harming soldiers and disciplinary repercussions themselves.
Should beginner cavers be trained with higher realism and higher repercussions?
In the US, the National Cave Rescue Commission requires locking carabiners in training which likely increases safety in chaotic training scenarios.
In Hungary, cave rescuers believe it’s more realistic to have a non-locking carabiner on their short cowstail. Hungarian cavers train with this choice in mind, exercising extra care during chaotic situations.
So now, form your own opinions, they may look like:
• American rescuers are compensating for abysmal basic skills or infrequent exposure to rebelays. The extra locking mechanism is a crutch which may paradoxically decrease safety, since a non-locker is always available for clipping.
or:
• Normalization of deviance has resulted in Hungarian rescuers choosing a less safe technique.
Best of both worlds? Pictured is a locking carabiner that can be easily clipped or unclipped. Everything has drawbacks, this carabiner is heavy, expensive, and potentially too large to clip some hangers. Many varieties of easily manipulated carabiners exist. Dual-action auto-lockers are another example. Why dynamic rope?
Dynamic rope blah blah
Hooked Noses
The notch gets caught on stuff. Hooked nose carabiners are old fashion. You might decide you want this feature, but most manufacturers and end-users have moved away from this design.
Short Cowstail:
Arriving at a Length
You are ascending toward a rebelay. Your ascenders stack up below knot.
To clip the hanger, your short cowstail must reach across ALL these items as they stack up under the station:
- Croll
- Hand Ascender
- 1cm of padding (so your ascender doesn’t get stuck to the knot)
- Knot
- Quicklink
Typically 45-50cm is long enough. If you make it longer than this you could have issues with your body being too far from the anchor when you’re rappelling down past the rebelay.
The Depth of Human Knowledge
Elongation reduces forces
This screenshot from a RopeTestLab article (paywall) shows approximate cowstail elongation figures. The author uses 6kn because of EN standards. however from reading French Lanyard Tests, we also know 6kn is about what you will experience in a fall-factor 1 fall with dynamic rope.
So the knots tighten AND the rope stretches. Lengthen good.
1m stretches 585mm = 23in (todo)
French Cowstail testing
A massive set of tests performed on caving cowstails
TL:DR
- The recipe above performed best.
- Pre-tightening knots is fine
Spelegyca is more hazardous than other solutions:
An image from the Petzl Spelegyca manual. The spelegyca complies with EU 2016/425 which implies a 6kn maximum arrest. However Petzl conveniently forgets to mention or illustrate the required “screamer” for compliance. Purcell Prussiks and Daisy Chains
TL:DR
- Purcell prussiks are dangerous and unpredictable
- Daisy chains are dangerous
Standards & Procedures
United States
United Kingdom
Anti-Patterns
Bullshit Asymmetry Principle: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.” ~Alberto Brandolini,
Notes:
Integrate data and ideas or link to this article which isn’t bad: https://www.peakinstruction.com/blog/cowstails-for-srt/
Paul says:
Here is the lanyard that I use: https://www.petzl.com/NL/en/Professional/Lanyards-and-energy-absorbers/JANE-Y
Petzl states this fot the JANE-Y: “Dynamic rope lanyard to limit the impact transmitted to the user in the event of a short fall (1)”
Daisy Chains
Matt:
There’s a lot of bad stuff you can do that’s worse than bad cowstails.
Don’t get above the anchor
Here’s what is going to happen to your body if you screw up.
Explain affects of diameter on impact reduction
Rebelays: Matt clips big rebelay loop on way up. On way down he clips to highest thing that’s safe. If your short cowstail is too long then it’s hard to get your foot in the rebelay loop. If you fall on it. Not enough flexibility to push off the wall.
Alan World: Vertical –
Evidence
Section for both cts what happens when they’re too short or too long.
Change big photo to make it obvious that the climber is climbing
Don’t use your cowstail for hanging a bag. When light, clip to gearloop when heavy clip to D-link which uses more shoulders.