Skylotec Double-O Tri Twistlock Carabiner

Joe90

Member
Hay,

I live in a hot dry and sometimes dusty country. So little mud and grit to deal with, I find twist and triple locks great out here. However once back in Europe I find all my nice shiny crabs get gunked up with mud and grit and stop being so nice to use. I end up using every puddle I can find to try and clean them up so I can close them easily. That doesn't seem to be an issue with a good old screw gate.

Might be worth think about the kind of caving you do and how dirty you get your gear. They look nice, and I'm sure I'd like a couple here. Not sure how much I'd enjoy them back home.

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Rob

Well-known member
Joe, I typically agree with your caution around "new and complicated" gear in muddy UK caves.

However almost all Derbyshire cavers i cave with have adopted an Omni Triact as their central maillon and typically they seem to handle the harsh environment well. However admittedly they are probably opened and closed less underground than a typical krab for, say, a cowstail.
 

Mike Hopley

New member
Rob said:
However almost all Derbyshire cavers i cave with have adopted an Omni Triact as their central maillon and typically they seem to handle the harsh environment well.

In the Picos, my Omni Triact got stuck unlocked, due (I later realised) to a combination of harness closures pressing inwards to undo the first stage, and grit then entering the mechanism. I climbed a lot of rope on a snapgate carabiner!

I have not heard of anyone else having this problem. But for me, the first stage will open every time I get on rope. This is easy to miss if you are not watching for it. It may depend on your harness and body shape.

I now have an Omni screwgate and have had no problems.

I am not saying the Triact is bad. I'm just suggesting people check whether their harness closure loops are pressing inwards and undoing the first stage.
 

Joe90

Member
I use a Petzl Fractio caving harness and I've never had my Triact central open up as you described either here, the Picos or anywhere actually. I imagine its because they only infrequently get opened up. Whereas the triple lock oval I used on my stop on my first trip to the Picos was a complete nightmare! I decided to go back to screw gates for crappy stuff other than the central Triact after that.

I think you may well be right about the harness pushing on it. I canyon in an AV Mazerin and that has material hoops which do push the first step of the lock open. I noticed it ages back and always check it now as you say.

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andychapm

New member
I thought this might be of interest to the discussion.

A few years ago whilst on expedition, a friend of mine was prussiking up a 40m pitch when he noticed his central mallion had completely detached itself from the right-hand loop (if you were looking directly at the person wearing the harness). Luckily, he was a few metres away from a big ledge so he ascended carefully to that and reset the central mallion so it was safe again.
Anyway, we dissected the incident later on that day and came up with the following ideas.
The gear being used was a MTDE sit harness, Petzl Omni (screwgate) and the rest was pretty standard SRT kit with a couple of heavy tacklebags to carry.

1) Firstly, the screwgate Omni can and did undo itself, either by vibration, rubbing against clothing or just forgetting to do up.
Probably best to keep checking regularly, even midway up a pitch if its a long one.

2) Secondly, the tackle bags were attached to the bottom of the Omni. This may have caused the screwgate to open but most importantly, they generally mean the Omni is pulled to one side about 45 degrees by the weight of the bags.
My solution is now to always attach tackle bags to the leg loops, using a little quick draw sling on each leg loop so if one snaps (unlikely), your bags aren't going 40m down a pitch. I've seen people use a piece of cord attached to the loops for the central mallion but I think having weight pulling on that part of the harness is never a great idea as its more stuff to tangle up.

3) Thirdly (and finally) the sit harness was quite slack due to having worn more clothes deeper into the cave. This meant that there was some play in the waist loop of the harness. As the central mallion was at 45 degrees, this meant the loop could push against the unscrewed gate and with the motion of prussiking upwards, this pushed the gate open and then the loop could slide off, causing what I can only imagine would be a large tightening of the sphincter muscle
Solution: Keep your harness tightened!!

Anyway, to relate this to the previous posts, I think this could potentially happen to any central mallion no matter which way the gate does up, so perhaps the lesson to learn overall is to keep checking and ensure the gate is working correctly
 
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