Petzl Stop Poll

Question 1. How did you learn to use your Petzl Stop descender?

  • A training course with a professional instructor?

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • On the surface advised by another caver?

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Underground advised by another caver?

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Self-taught with practice on the surface?

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Self taught underground without practice on the surface?

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0
  • Poll closed .

Andy Sparrow

Active member
If you are a Petzl Stop user please spend a minute to help with this poll. There has been some heated debate recently about the safety of the Stop descender and the standards of training in UK caving. I am hoping this survey will provide an insight into what and how people are learning about this accident prone piece of kit.

There is another question I would like to ask but the system only supports one poll at a time. So, if you could spare a moment to post a reply....

Question 2: Were you made aware during your training that the Stop had a bad accident record?


Please add any other comments you feel are relevant. Thanks.
 
D

darkplaces

Guest
I voted 'On the surface self trained'.
Andy Sparrow said:
...this accident prone piece of kit.
I'm only a beginner but my view is, its not the kit but the user thats at fault in the case of 'clutch and plummet' if your using a figure 8 you have less of a chanse if something goes wrong. Also down to training (atleast looking at the dam picture printed on the thing) the stop can be attached upside down as it looks wrong unloaded so the tendancy is to make it look right unloaded which is wrong...

Andy Sparrow said:
Question 2: Were you made aware during your training that the Stop had a bad accident record?
A loaded question I feel. I am aware now of the 'clutch and plmmet' record which has one simple solution, training and the spread of information relating to the issue. As I have not had any formal training I was not made aware untill I started talking to other cavers here and reading websites.

I'm sorry if I offend anyone but maybe its just part of evolution that if you cant read the little picture printed on the thing or train yourself/get training not to grab the handel in panic maybe your attemping to remove yourself from the geanpool.

You cant build a device that stops when you apply a break as this is useless if your knocked uncon. on the rope. So I think the stop is a good idea people just need to get used to.

Do we have any stats for the number of 'saves' the stop has made, nobody reports non-accident use of stop (as far as I am aware) so how can we compare it to anything else.
 

langcliffe

Well-known member
Andy Sparrow said:
If you are a Petzl Stop user please spend a minute to help with this poll.

I voted "underground without practice", but I started SRT in 1972 and was pretty experienced by the time Petzl stops came along. I remember that I bought one pretty much as soon as it was available in this country.

Andy Sparrow said:
Question 2: Were you made aware during your training that the Stop had a bad accident record?

This assumes that one was trained. Even so, I would like to make the point that in 20 years, or whatever it is, of using Petzl Stops, I have never had a bad experience with them, nor have any of my companions.

I do appreciate that they are liable to misuse, as is practically any other piece of equipment, and from that point of view, I would venture to suggest that it is users that have a bad accident record - not the devices. The same argument is put forward about drivers and cars.

As a matter of interest, I saw a couple of people coming down the Big Pitch in Bar on Wednesday with Petzl Stops, and they obviously had no real idea of how to use them. On the other hand, they had no real idea of abseiling full stop, to the extent that they tried to remove the equipment whilst the rope was still under tension.

I am more than happy to concede that training in the usage of equipment will improve safety underground, but I really don't like seeing the equipment blamed for its misuse.
 

mudmonkey

New member
I initially found a Stop very hard to control smoothly so began SRT as a determined rack user. Clutch-and-plummet is a well-known problem, however for a compent user this is offset by its greater versatility.

Bad accident record - to say this you need to know what proportion of loss-of-control incidents involve stops, and what proportion of abseils overall involve stops. Do you have that data Andy? If so it'd be interesting - if not you may just be seeing an artifact of the popularity of stops over other descenders.

A friend recently tried to come down Titan on a Petzl ID (the new toy which has been brought out to prevent clutch-and-plummets) as a test-drive. He gave up at the rebelay halfway down and swapped to his rack.....
 

hrock

New member
the stop need some explaining about the dangers, this should be done during training.
i think it suits some people more then others, i think it is a better bit of kit for an experienced user with knowlage of its versitilaty and the cool headedness to let go of it if it all goes wrong. but sadly i think most of the people i know who are nervous use stops and the confident ones use racks. this is as the stop is sold as a decender with a safty feature of automaticly stoping, sounds good if you are nervous but it is these people who are most likey to panic

vicious circle hay?
 
M

MSD

Guest
I was also self trained. To be honest I didn't think it was a big deal learning to use it and I have never had a single bad moment with Petzl Stops. I'm currently on my fourth! I would have to be very impressed to switch to another abseiling device - I've tried quite a few but nothing comes close - there are various compromises involved (weight, convenience, ease of caving with it dangling over my balls, smoothness of abseil, safety etc.). Although other devices might outscore the Stop on a single criterium, they just don't have the all-round performance.

I've also taught dozens of novice cavers to do SRT and the Petzl Stop is my tool of choice. One point to mention is that I always advocate using a braking crab (or more modernly, a Handy, although I admit I have bought one of these myself). No, I don't tell my trainees that the Petzl Stop has a bad accident record, because I don't believe that necessarily to be true. In any case in Sweden (where I live) there has not been a single caving accident involving abseiling. So there is no accident data!

Obviously no descender is fool proof. A very careful statistical analysis would be necessary to say that one particular make is dangerous, since accidents are relatively rare and usually have several causes. Plus a particular descender might be more prone to one sort of accident, but less prone to another. In addition not all accidents might be so obviously attributable to the particular equipment used by a caver. For example changing from up to down or vicia versa is significantly slower and more cumbersome using a rack. If you needed to do this in a hurry (flooding cave for example) and got strung up, who would think of blaming the equipment?

MSD (Mark)
 

cap n chris

Well-known member
I don't tell my trainees that the Petzl Stop has a bad accident record, because I don't believe that necessarily to be true

Presumably you are unaware of how many accidents there have been with PSs in the last few years in the UK, almost certainly due to lack of training or user ignorance (admittedly this is an assumption on my part but I am aware that the author of this thread has much more direct knowledge on this matter than I do).
 

Jagman

New member
I use a Petzl Stop, learnt to use it dangling from the rafters in the barn.
Not a perfect piece of kit but pretty good, I find that at 18stone it's effectiveness is severely reduced without a braking crab, although I have seen several people not bother
Also seen several people rig the damn thing upside down and in one case i know of a bloke who did an extremely rapid 50' shaft descent.

Simple safety practice, every time I put it on I triple check the little diagram on the side, complacency far more dangerous than the device itself....
 

Stu

Active member
Q1 I learnt to use the Stop whilst training for industrial rope work some 10 years ago. Wasn't really a caver at the time but as a climber had used a Grigri loads, so was aware of some of the potential drawbacks.

Q2 No, this wasn't dealt with at the time of the course. Moot point anyway as it's all double rope systems.


Can I ask for what reason your questions?
 

Rhys

Moderator
Oh no! Not the Petzl Stop "debate" again :(

There's one thing everyone should remember when abseiling and it goes for all devices, not just Stops; "Never let go of the tail rope unless your descender is fully locked off".

If you break that rule, you're in for a fall, Stop or not.

In answer to your questions Andy. I was initially trained by a professional and I wasn't told that the Stop had a bad record - I don't believe that it has a particularly bad record.

Rhys
 

rich

New member
MSD said:
A very careful statistical analysis would be necessary to say that one particular make is dangerous, since accidents are relatively rare and usually have several causes. Plus a particular descender might be more prone to one sort of accident, but less prone to another. In addition not all accidents might be so obviously attributable to the particular equipment used by a caver.

Not to mention how widely-used a paticular piece of kit is. Stops these days are pretty much ubiquitous, so a higher accident rate with stops rather than bobbins or racks or whatever may just reflect their popularity.

Correlation does not prove causation. If people without enough experience are taking up abseiling, then that's the problem that needs addressing, not their choice of descender.
 
M

Mike W

Guest
A loaded question indeed ! Do I smell hidden agendas and bias ?

I've used descenders extensively for over 40 years, and found some a bit scary. However, of the five different types I've used most, it's my considered opinion that the Petzl Stop is the best for all round use. On the one time I've seen an (untrained) user 'plummet', it was actually with a different make of descender.

I'm not even sure that the poor quality of training should be blamed - what sort of idiot doesn't read the instructions for such a critical piece of equipment ??
 

ian mckenzie

New member
I don't live in the UK so have refrained from voting, but I can say that all cavers here that I know of learned on the surface+underground from a competent caver, and would have been told of the Stop shortcomings but not that it was flawed or inherently dangerous (which I don't believe it is).
 
M

Mine Explorer

Guest
c**tplaces said:
You cant build a device that stops when you apply a break as this is useless if your knocked uncon. on the rope.

You've obviously never heard of the descender available a number of years ago that did just that.

If you let go of the handle the device would lock, if you squeeze the handle half-way in it would be unlocked and you could descend. If you squeezed the handle all the way in it would lock again.

In answer to the first question, I was taught to abseil underground using a rack (we have a nice clinical chamber U/G that get's rigged for training/practice with a fixed ladder alongside, for when you hang-yourself-up!), as such it was pretty obvious to keep hold of the tail rope. I then moved on to the stop and was shown that, including the tendancy in a panic to squeeze not release.
 
I`m a beginner and have only used a stop but even from a novices point of view it seems pretty bomb-proof if used correctly...
I guess it helps that i`m still at the stage where there is zero complacency - doing everything in the reccomended "by the book" take all day fashion!!!
When you say "has a bad accident record" is that in the sense of Petzl stop falling apart sending user plummetting to their death sense - which would be extremely worrying or in the "numpties like myself f*ck it up" sense which would be a little more comforting....
 

pisshead

New member
i was taught to use a stop and rack at the same time above ground and was told then that if people grab the hnadle in panic they plummet...i wasn't necessarily told that this happens a lot, but i was aware of the problem.

i actually chose a rack because i like to be able to clearly see where the friction's coming from and my grip strength is rubbish and i have trouble holding the stop handle completely in, meaning it would wear. but then most people have better grip than me!
 
C

Chrissi

Guest
My feeling is that no matter how much training you give the automatic reaction if something unexpected happens (rock hitting your shoulder, whatever) is to hold tight! It's the way the human brain functions for self-preservation after all if someone freaks on a pitch they'll be literally glued to the spot. It's how we're programmed. I'd go for a rack everytime especially with novices - easy to learn and a quick tug before stepping out will tell you if it's threaded correctly.
 

Rhys

Moderator
Mine Explorer said:
c**tplaces said:
You cant build a device that stops when you apply a break as this is useless if your knocked uncon. on the rope.

You've obviously never heard of the descender available a number of years ago that did just that.

If you let go of the handle the device would lock, if you squeeze the handle half-way in it would be unlocked and you could descend. If you squeezed the handle all the way in it would lock again.
This was just one of those devices http://storrick.cnchost.com/VerticalDevicesPage/Rappel/PolyBollardPages/PolyBollard459.html . However, they're no longer manufactured or on sale anywhere!

Rhys
 
M

Mine Explorer

Guest
Yep - that's the type!

Never seen one in the flesh though :(
 
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