caving_fox
Active member
Add a maillon between your croll and the Dring. - The Croll WILL still sit flat (naysayers to the contrary) but you have to be a little more careful in threading the chestharness to ensure it does so.
Caver Anatomy
- Thread starter Amy
- Start date
Add a maillon between your croll and the Dring. - The Croll WILL still sit flat (naysayers to the contrary) but you have to be a little more careful in threading the chestharness to ensure it does so.
Mike Hopley
New member
That's a good, well-presented video, and food for thought!
In general I agree with your point: some people may be better off with a higher attachment point, and in particular this can depend on body shape or fitness.
However, a chest harness is standard for frogging. The chest harness's purpose is to hold the Croll up, but also to support your body close to the rope. You only have a bungee strap; with that, I would also fall backwards away from the rope when I relaxed -- and I'm your typical skinny / lean Euro caver stereotype.
That's correct.
However, you could improve your setup by shortening your footloops. This would give you the same height of step, but you would not need to raise your ascender as high up the rope -- and that saves your arms some energy.
When your legs are fully extended at the end of a step, the cams of your ascenders should be almost touching. The gap you have is inefficient.
simonsays
New member
Wishing to avoid buying a custom made harness I was wondering what folks thought of my modifications?
two maillons inbetween the legloops and D ring. Seems to raise the overall centre of gravity by quite a bit. Strapped a tape from the D ring behind my back and re-attached to the other side. This tape sits much higher up my back than the harness strap and I'm hoping it will provide more efficient support.
I'm open to comments.... I'm still in nappies (Diapers to you Amy) when it comes to srt. I can see this working okay when it comes to simple free hangs up and down but I'm struggling to picture how it would affect rebelays deviations etc
two maillons inbetween the legloops and D ring. Seems to raise the overall centre of gravity by quite a bit. Strapped a tape from the D ring behind my back and re-attached to the other side. This tape sits much higher up my back than the harness strap and I'm hoping it will provide more efficient support.
I'm open to comments.... I'm still in nappies (Diapers to you Amy
) when it comes to srt. I can see this working okay when it comes to simple free hangs up and down but I'm struggling to picture how it would affect rebelays deviations etcBlakethwaite
New member
Raising the height of the Croll potentially decreases the length of the step and thus manoeuvrability would also be affected. Could cause problems when doing such things as knot passes?
A proper chest tape might be of more help, one that can be tightened once weighted?
A proper chest tape might be of more help, one that can be tightened once weighted?
langcliffe
Well-known member
You may be interested to know, Amy, that your build makes you most like somebody from Barbados.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18770328
I'm most like somebody from Bangladesh...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18770328
I'm most like somebody from Bangladesh...
Blakethwaite
New member
droid said:
Yes, it might well be actually. I thought it was just a length of tat looped behind the neck at first glance.
In any event, being a manly 16 stones I personally find that a chest tape coming under the arms and around the chest offers much better support than the over the shoulder torse.
simonsays
New member
I've not yet had the chance to test these mods out on a rope. It's all theoretical at the moment. I don't *think* the maillons will dig in, even with the higher attachment point I still suspect that my centre of gravity will tend towards pulling me away from them. Just less do than with the standard 'very low' attachment.
I'm hoping to try out this setup on a simple (no deviations/rebelays) pitch sometime over the weekend. I have no worries over the safety/strength of the modifications to the harness, the maillons are used for rigging so I'm happy to use them to hold my harness together and the large white sling has also been used for rigging purposes and is just supplementing the support rather than taking the full load. There is also a standard petzl torse holding the scroll upright.
I hear what you're saying about passing knots etc only time will tell. I intend to try these things out whilst close to the ground rather than when spinning round in a waterfall.
I'm hoping to try out this setup on a simple (no deviations/rebelays) pitch sometime over the weekend. I have no worries over the safety/strength of the modifications to the harness, the maillons are used for rigging so I'm happy to use them to hold my harness together and the large white sling has also been used for rigging purposes and is just supplementing the support rather than taking the full load. There is also a standard petzl torse holding the scroll upright.
I hear what you're saying about passing knots etc only time will tell. I intend to try these things out whilst close to the ground rather than when spinning round in a waterfall.
Oceanrower
Active member
Blakethwaite
New member
TheBitterEnd
Well-known member
SimonSays - after the last time this was discussed on here (I think it was you that raised the issue with regard to staying upright whilst descending) I went and had a prat around and tried out various configurations.
Personally I found the best thing to be slackening off my leg loops (pretty much as to as long as they would go*) which more or less achieves what you have done in the picture in that it raised the waist belt. I found this to be better (for me) that raising the croll using a maillon because it raises the attachment point for both ascending and descending and puts the waist belt higher up.
*I find I have to be careful though because very short ends tend to get pushed back through the buckle. Also you do need a bit of string to hold the leg loops up for walking/crawling
Personally I found the best thing to be slackening off my leg loops (pretty much as to as long as they would go*) which more or less achieves what you have done in the picture in that it raised the waist belt. I found this to be better (for me) that raising the croll using a maillon because it raises the attachment point for both ascending and descending and puts the waist belt higher up.
*I find I have to be careful though because very short ends tend to get pushed back through the buckle. Also you do need a bit of string to hold the leg loops up for walking/crawling
Okay I'm going to try and address questions let me know if I missed something -
1) Yes, I used a bungee (Called "Pup's Pal" after it's local inventor of the idea) because it pulls up the croll for me better than other options. I was a frogger for my first year of vertical and went through multiple chest harness types, but due to the breasts and falling away from the rope, tightening of standard chest harnesses for frogging (including all my own variations/alterations of such) simply made my back concave, and were very painful to wear. I couldn't get it tight enough to be upright , I could only curl my body. At such angles, the croll wouldn't slide up the rope. Or, if loosened, there wasn't enough tension to bring it up the rope. The bungee solved that issue and in the long run was more comfortable because otherwise I was being crunched painfully!
2) Putting a mallion between the D-ring and croll is an idea I actually used back then. The seat harness, however, is still the same. The weight while sitting on the rope still goes through that low D-ring. To help explain - think about how you have a short and long cowstail. If you are hanging off of just the short side vs just the long side, the distance of the lanyard to that attachment point on rope doesn't change how you sit in the harness. The same is true for lengthening the D-ring to croll distance. Your weight is held through the D-ring, no matter how high up the ascender sits.
3) I hadn't thought of how SimonSays did it - it may well work, or at least give you an idea enough if investing in a proper high attachment point cave harness is worth it. the only one I know of is the one I used in the video, made by Pangea gear here. It is an expensive harness, $150 or something like that, but it is a two for one and custom built (give him the measurements, it's made directly for your body!). There is a lot of padding on it that makes it soooooo comfortable but it is all removable and then it's a basic compact harness for all your narly in-cave stuff.
4) as far as the high point, for rappeling it makes it much nicer if you require it for your body type, because you can be relaxed and sitting for the rappel. This makes you closer to the rope, so it's easier to do on-rope manovers as you aren't trying to do a friggin' situp the entire time, but you are right next to the rope to do whatever it is you have to do. Changeovers are no more difficult - in fact, I found them easier because of this. I didn't have to struggle to stay upright throughout the process, I was already there! I actually had more space to manouver with because I didn't loose reaching distance because of the anglular struggle.
5) I *have* done rebelays with the mallion-between-the-croll-and-dring, and having the croll up higher did not hinder me in the least. I have *not* done a rebelay with the high attachement point harness yet, but I would assume the same properties (since it's higher up just like with the mallion between the two) and the fact you aren't fighting to hold yourself upright the entire time, make it fine to deal with. We'll have a rope course set up at a caving event in 3 weeks I can report back then if you are that curious. =)
6) measuring boob weight - well I used a kitchen scale that does 2 oz to 20lbs. Placed a boob on it carefully as to not weight it with body weight. Switch boobs, repeat. Did it 5x each boob to make sure I was getting an accurate reading. I did round the ounces to nearest pound but for the one, for example, it was all 12lbs 0oz to 12lbs 4oz for all the weights so seemed accurate enough.
1) Yes, I used a bungee (Called "Pup's Pal" after it's local inventor of the idea) because it pulls up the croll for me better than other options. I was a frogger for my first year of vertical and went through multiple chest harness types, but due to the breasts and falling away from the rope, tightening of standard chest harnesses for frogging (including all my own variations/alterations of such) simply made my back concave, and were very painful to wear. I couldn't get it tight enough to be upright , I could only curl my body. At such angles, the croll wouldn't slide up the rope. Or, if loosened, there wasn't enough tension to bring it up the rope. The bungee solved that issue and in the long run was more comfortable because otherwise I was being crunched painfully!
2) Putting a mallion between the D-ring and croll is an idea I actually used back then. The seat harness, however, is still the same. The weight while sitting on the rope still goes through that low D-ring. To help explain - think about how you have a short and long cowstail. If you are hanging off of just the short side vs just the long side, the distance of the lanyard to that attachment point on rope doesn't change how you sit in the harness. The same is true for lengthening the D-ring to croll distance. Your weight is held through the D-ring, no matter how high up the ascender sits.
3) I hadn't thought of how SimonSays did it - it may well work, or at least give you an idea enough if investing in a proper high attachment point cave harness is worth it. the only one I know of is the one I used in the video, made by Pangea gear here. It is an expensive harness, $150 or something like that, but it is a two for one and custom built (give him the measurements, it's made directly for your body!). There is a lot of padding on it that makes it soooooo comfortable but it is all removable and then it's a basic compact harness for all your narly in-cave stuff.
4) as far as the high point, for rappeling it makes it much nicer if you require it for your body type, because you can be relaxed and sitting for the rappel. This makes you closer to the rope, so it's easier to do on-rope manovers as you aren't trying to do a friggin' situp the entire time, but you are right next to the rope to do whatever it is you have to do. Changeovers are no more difficult - in fact, I found them easier because of this. I didn't have to struggle to stay upright throughout the process, I was already there! I actually had more space to manouver with because I didn't loose reaching distance because of the anglular struggle.
5) I *have* done rebelays with the mallion-between-the-croll-and-dring, and having the croll up higher did not hinder me in the least. I have *not* done a rebelay with the high attachement point harness yet, but I would assume the same properties (since it's higher up just like with the mallion between the two) and the fact you aren't fighting to hold yourself upright the entire time, make it fine to deal with. We'll have a rope course set up at a caving event in 3 weeks I can report back then if you are that curious. =)
6) measuring boob weight - well I used a kitchen scale that does 2 oz to 20lbs. Placed a boob on it carefully as to not weight it with body weight. Switch boobs, repeat. Did it 5x each boob to make sure I was getting an accurate reading. I did round the ounces to nearest pound but for the one, for example, it was all 12lbs 0oz to 12lbs 4oz for all the weights so seemed accurate enough.
langcliffe
Well-known member
blackshiver
Member
Video quote from Blakethwaite.
You should try that one on Chris next time he's out in his new tight undersuit.
Then again, perhaps not, the A+E department is not a pleasant place to spend a Sunday evening.
You should try that one on Chris next time he's out in his new tight undersuit.
Then again, perhaps not, the A+E department is not a pleasant place to spend a Sunday evening.
blackshiver
Member
Just noticed, Amy uses a "stretchy thing" as a chest harness, Simon uses a tape around his neck. I'm not going to say what I describe is right but it's worked for me for the best part of erm...X decades.
Amy and Simon probably can't get stable because there is nothing actually holding / pulling them them into the rope. Being a bangladesh type I can't comment on weight distribution.
I use a length of tape, place the buckle on the left shoulder, take the tape down the back and across to the right, through the D mallion at the front, around my waist, up the back from left to right, over the right shoulder, through the croll top attachment point and back up to the buckle.
The point here, is that putting it through the D mallion lifts / stabilises the harness and it also allows you to tighten the buckle when you are on the rope so that it draws your body forward. Rope, Croll and Body (small breasts remember) are all held tightly together.
Off the rope I'm almost bent double with it set up properly and I adjust the buckle to stand up straight.
For me, any rig that lets you lay back like Amy's does is dangerous, in an accident you are not going to last very long unconcious in that position.
I'm not preaching, just telling you what works for me in UK caves. Sorry for the unusually sensible post - normal service will be resumed shortly.
Amy and Simon probably can't get stable because there is nothing actually holding / pulling them them into the rope. Being a bangladesh type I can't comment on weight distribution.
I use a length of tape, place the buckle on the left shoulder, take the tape down the back and across to the right, through the D mallion at the front, around my waist, up the back from left to right, over the right shoulder, through the croll top attachment point and back up to the buckle.
The point here, is that putting it through the D mallion lifts / stabilises the harness and it also allows you to tighten the buckle when you are on the rope so that it draws your body forward. Rope, Croll and Body (small breasts remember) are all held tightly together.
Off the rope I'm almost bent double with it set up properly and I adjust the buckle to stand up straight.
For me, any rig that lets you lay back like Amy's does is dangerous, in an accident you are not going to last very long unconcious in that position.
I'm not preaching, just telling you what works for me in UK caves. Sorry for the unusually sensible post - normal service will be resumed shortly.
simonsays
New member
Hi blackshiver, that strap round my neck was a petzl torse attached to the back of my harness. I've tried three different types of chest harness, it doesn't matter how hard I crank em down it still doesn't alter the fact that my centre of gravity is *above* the scroll and I'm always going to fall backwards.
Not an issue if you're thin
I weigh in at about 15 stone and am very top heavy. If you fancy a real laugh try your current setup whilst wearing a rucksack with about 5 stone in it... Just don't try it far from the ground :-O
I have high hopes for my modified harness and can't wait to try it out this weekend.
Not an issue if you're thin
I weigh in at about 15 stone and am very top heavy. If you fancy a real laugh try your current setup whilst wearing a rucksack with about 5 stone in it... Just don't try it far from the ground :-O
I have high hopes for my modified harness and can't wait to try it out this weekend.
bograt
Active member
langcliffe said:
Obvious scientific discrepancy; "fully submerge breast in water" - "breast is less dense than water" This indicates that to submerge the breast in water some downwards pressure is required, thereby introducing an external element to the experiment and nullifying the final readings.
A far more accurate procedure would be to carry out the same experiment with a full body emersion in a brimmed bath, start with all the body except the relevant parts submerged and brim up the bath, then hold them down and submerge again, the water displaced would equate to the specific gravity of the mass introduced, thereby enabling calculation of the weight.