Tseralo
Active member
A few people took an interested when I bought this and as there isn't much info out there about their use in caving I thought I would write something.
A Petzl Adjust for thoes not in the loop is an adjustable cows tail made by Petzl and sells for around ?40. I went with the dual connect with has a short cowstail and a long adjustable one. I've used it on around 30 trips now since I bought it last year including all the big SRT peak district trips, Titan, JH, Oxlow, Maskhill, Nettle, White river etc along with a few larger Yorkshire trips, Bar Pot, Diccan to Alum etc.
In Derbyshire, it's useless once its gets mud into it and the rope got a bit fluffy it became very hard to adjust but I also found very few places it was helpful to be able to adjust it. We have very few places you need to swing for rigging and traverse lines where it's useful to have a very short cowstail are also rare.
In Yorkshire, it was more useful mostly when rigging things like Diccan where you have to swing to the next bolts, you can swing, clip in your long then pull on it and it brings you right up to the bolts. The lack of mud really helps the mechanism work as it's not jammed up all the time.
It has one big downside that I found the rope is bent at quite an angle through the adjustment mechanism and that was eventually the downfall of mine having crawled through What passage at the top of block hall I found the sheath had ripped open. You also have to use a locking carabiner on the long or it will rotate as there is no barrel knot holding the carabiner in place.
Would I buy another one? If I was spending all my time rigging caves in Yorkshire and didnt have anything else to spend money on, probably. As I do 90% of my caving in Derbyshire I've been and spent ?30 on 30m of dynamic that will keep me in cowstails for a long time.
I've attached some images of the Adjust bellow as you can see the metal parts and stitching have held up well.
A Petzl Adjust for thoes not in the loop is an adjustable cows tail made by Petzl and sells for around ?40. I went with the dual connect with has a short cowstail and a long adjustable one. I've used it on around 30 trips now since I bought it last year including all the big SRT peak district trips, Titan, JH, Oxlow, Maskhill, Nettle, White river etc along with a few larger Yorkshire trips, Bar Pot, Diccan to Alum etc.
In Derbyshire, it's useless once its gets mud into it and the rope got a bit fluffy it became very hard to adjust but I also found very few places it was helpful to be able to adjust it. We have very few places you need to swing for rigging and traverse lines where it's useful to have a very short cowstail are also rare.
In Yorkshire, it was more useful mostly when rigging things like Diccan where you have to swing to the next bolts, you can swing, clip in your long then pull on it and it brings you right up to the bolts. The lack of mud really helps the mechanism work as it's not jammed up all the time.
It has one big downside that I found the rope is bent at quite an angle through the adjustment mechanism and that was eventually the downfall of mine having crawled through What passage at the top of block hall I found the sheath had ripped open. You also have to use a locking carabiner on the long or it will rotate as there is no barrel knot holding the carabiner in place.
Would I buy another one? If I was spending all my time rigging caves in Yorkshire and didnt have anything else to spend money on, probably. As I do 90% of my caving in Derbyshire I've been and spent ?30 on 30m of dynamic that will keep me in cowstails for a long time.
I've attached some images of the Adjust bellow as you can see the metal parts and stitching have held up well.