your SRT configuration

[Cartwright26]

So im wandering what are peoples favourite setup from left to right on your D ring? Ive seen diferent setups such as croll on far right or cowstails then croll then jumar etc. Currently i have from my right to left croll, stop, jumar, cowstails (long and short tied with barrel knots with two overhands in middle to make an extra short loop)

 

[Kenilworth]

My left to right when wearing: micro-rack, croll, Jumar tether/short cowstail on single bit of dynamic attached to d-ring with an overhand.

 

[cap n chris]

Anything to the right of your croll may make mid rope changeovers fiddlesome but personal testing will prove or disprove this at your leisure.

Me, R-L: croll, descender, cowstails.

 

[Cartwright26]

What about Ascender Chris?

 

[cap n chris]

Alpine Caving Techniques style - connects to the cowstail when in use.

 

[MJenkinson]

L-R from my point of view: cows tails, descender, braking crab, croll. Hand jammer safety cord is attached to the bottom of the d maillon.

 

[Cartwright26]

Ah how very continental of you  8) i dont see many people with that configuration but im sure ive seen some of the cornwall ladies and gents using it, personally i have seperate safety line/foot loop tied with figure eight to D ring over hand to maillon with bowline as foot loop

 

[Cartwright26]

To the bottom of the D? Does that not pose a risk to opening the screw gate?

 

[Filter]

To the bottom of the D? Does that not pose a risk to opening the screw gate?

If MJenkinson is clipping in with a crab, then it shouldn't pose too large a risk, particularly since there is little to no weight actually being placed on the line (it's rare when someone is hanging completely from their hand jammer). No rub means less chance of unlock (especially since it's metal-on-metal)

I have the same setup, but I have a braking crab on my leg loop for anything over 3m of descent.

At Glasgow Uni we teach the freshers to go (L-R) stop, brake, cows, hand, croll, but that's mainly to keep the cowstails out of the way of the stop handle.

 

[ah147]

L-R from my point of view: Left cowstail, descender, croll, right cowstail

 

[jasonbirder]

Very standard (l - R) Cowstails - Descender -  Braking Crab - Croll Safety cord for hand Ascender/Footloop is on the bottom of the D...
Never experienced any problems with it undoing my Maillon

 

[global_s]

What's the advantage of putting the ascender on the cows tails? I'd be scared of dropping the dam thing!

 

[ah147]

Less faff and clutter, makes some rescue situations easier as well.

 

[Fulk]

So ? am I the only person who has his descender to the right of his Croll? I realize that bits can jam in the Croll, but in practice I don't find this to be a problem, but having the descender on the right makes changeovers much easier (in my opinion, anyway).

 

[rsch]

So ? am I the only person who has his descender to the right of his Croll?

No, you are not.

 

[cap n chris]

Less faff and clutter, makes some rescue situations easier as well.

Indeed. Perhaps the question could be thrown back into the ring: what's the advantage of having an ascender on a separate connecting rope?

Also, how could you drop an ascender if it's connected?

 

[cap n chris]

having the descender on the right makes changeovers much easier (in my opinion, anyway).

Surely the locked off descender stops you from preparing the croll by opening the aperture prior to standing up to engage it into the rope above the descender? I'm guessing you stand up, then open the croll and then attach it to the rope. If so, isn't this less energy efficient?

 

[Fulk]

I guess that according to the Conservation of Energy Principle, the order in which you do things has no effect on the energy needed to do them.

In fact, though, I was referring to the ease of installing your descender when changing over to going down from up; it's there where you want it to thread the rope through.

 

[Filter]

To be fair, the fact that the descender is on its own crab and can be moved around rather freely means that its placement can be fluid. I actually agree that a up-to-down swap would be easier with the descender to the right of the croll. Down-to-up doesn't really matter since you're standing up in the footloop (though as Cap'n Chris said, it might get messy trying to open the croll with the descender in the way). I don't even have my descender on my D-ring unless I'm going down, though (or have to swap directions), so the location for me is rather moot.

Going back to the ascender-on-a-cowstail question - if you use a cowstail to clip into the hand jammer, you're effectively losing a connection, so at a rebelay you're either one cowstail short or are not directly connected to your hand jammer. I realise four points of contact is a bit overkill, but for freshers/novices it's better to be safe than dead.

The moral of this story (which seems to pop up in every "how do you do X" thread) is that you do what is most comfortable for your tastes, as long as you know the risks and/or limitations of that particular setup. Of course, these threads do help with the latter part, since people can point out benefits/flaws of a given setup.

 

[MJenkinson]

To the bottom of the D? Does that not pose a risk to opening the screw gate?

If MJenkinson is clipping in with a crab, then it shouldn't pose too large a risk, particularly since there is little to no weight actually being placed on the line (it's rare when someone is hanging completely from their hand jammer). No rub means less chance of unlock (especially since it's metal-on-metal)

I have the same setup, but I have a braking crab on my leg loop for anything over 3m of descent.

At Glasgow Uni we teach the freshers to go (L-R) stop, brake, cows, hand, croll, but that's mainly to keep the cowstails out of the way of the stop handle.

Yep clipped in with an oval crab so if weighted the gate faces out and screws down.