Cowstails
- Thread starter Alkapton
- Start date
Penguin
New member
Just to throw something different into the mix...
Since i started SRT i always used the standard Y-shaped long and short cowstail (favouring a long cowstail that i could comfortably reach while suspended from it, and a short cowstail that was quite short), with a separate 'idiot loop' cowstail permanent attached to my hand jammer, of the same diameter dynamic and the same length as my long cowstail. This allowed me to interchange long cowstail and idiot loop, and use both as long cowstails if the situation demanded.
A few months ago i was due to replace my cowstails with fresh ones and decided on a slightly different approach, forming the two long ones from a single length of dynamic rope tied with figure-8s either side of the centre, leaving enough rope between them to form a short cowstail with the karabiner of the latter held in an alpine butterfly. I also made the long cowstails longer. There's a little more bulk to this but a good bit more flexibility for rigging and aiding. If the situation requires it the long cowstails can be placed in the Croll for positioning or shortened with a butterfly.
My hand jammer lives on a separate krab, to which either cowstail can be attached. My footloop is adjustable and also lives a separate life, allowing it to be clipped to the jammer or used independently as a step. It can also be lengthened significantly, placed through the jammer krab and used in a counterbalance should i ever have to pick someone off their Croll.
Since i started SRT i always used the standard Y-shaped long and short cowstail (favouring a long cowstail that i could comfortably reach while suspended from it, and a short cowstail that was quite short), with a separate 'idiot loop' cowstail permanent attached to my hand jammer, of the same diameter dynamic and the same length as my long cowstail. This allowed me to interchange long cowstail and idiot loop, and use both as long cowstails if the situation demanded.
A few months ago i was due to replace my cowstails with fresh ones and decided on a slightly different approach, forming the two long ones from a single length of dynamic rope tied with figure-8s either side of the centre, leaving enough rope between them to form a short cowstail with the karabiner of the latter held in an alpine butterfly. I also made the long cowstails longer. There's a little more bulk to this but a good bit more flexibility for rigging and aiding. If the situation requires it the long cowstails can be placed in the Croll for positioning or shortened with a butterfly.
My hand jammer lives on a separate krab, to which either cowstail can be attached. My footloop is adjustable and also lives a separate life, allowing it to be clipped to the jammer or used independently as a step. It can also be lengthened significantly, placed through the jammer krab and used in a counterbalance should i ever have to pick someone off their Croll.
cap n chris
Well-known member
barrabus said:
Yes; well spotted; just noticed this - thanks! My bad! :-[
jarvist
New member
I have an attitude of 'horses for courses' with this. On a large Yorks / Derby SRT trip or deep alpine trip I take a dedicated shock cord. It's very useful for working yourself back up along 'challenging' rigging, and for derigging. Particularly when you have a 2nd jammer to put on your long cows tail.
It's not just super tight exploration rigging, but any time you have a very long hang above a rebelay, you should be putting in some point of attachment (i.e. long cows tail) to the bolt to stop you cross-loading your croll with the rope stretch which is bad both for your croll (ripping the front off) and the rigging (starts to shave the sheath), so that you simply pivot down with the rope stretch, then climb back up till level with the bolt, unclip & continue. You can do this with your shorts cows, but it can be a bit difficult to get it clipped in particularly if you don't have a Pantin, and leaves you rather trapped against the wall.
On a tight nasty little Yorkshire trip, I just do it French style (long cows as shock cord).
Personally my dedicated shock cord lives attached to my oval carabiner for my basic hand jammer (oval for easy hauling setup if necessary), most of the time stashed in my SRT bag. I usually just attach it to my braking carabiner for going up, with my descender then going in my SRT bag. My shock cord is in fact 'last years' cows tails, with the short cows chopped off after the sheath rubbed through on the barrel knot of the short.
I've seen people mess up the 'French' technique of just using your hand jammer.
It's not so much the dropping of the jammer, but of getting confused and loosing situational awareness. The big risk is that you unclip the long cows from your hand jammer when it is on the rope, to clip into a bolt etc., then unclip it again and assume that because your hand jammer is on the rope, you have a point of attachment there! I've seen people both prussic up a whole rebelay length with no connection between their hand jammer and harness, and also end up in a 'no point of attachment' situation at sloping ledge rebelays, walking their hand jammer up with nothing else on.
It's not just super tight exploration rigging, but any time you have a very long hang above a rebelay, you should be putting in some point of attachment (i.e. long cows tail) to the bolt to stop you cross-loading your croll with the rope stretch which is bad both for your croll (ripping the front off) and the rigging (starts to shave the sheath), so that you simply pivot down with the rope stretch, then climb back up till level with the bolt, unclip & continue. You can do this with your shorts cows, but it can be a bit difficult to get it clipped in particularly if you don't have a Pantin, and leaves you rather trapped against the wall.
On a tight nasty little Yorkshire trip, I just do it French style (long cows as shock cord).
Personally my dedicated shock cord lives attached to my oval carabiner for my basic hand jammer (oval for easy hauling setup if necessary), most of the time stashed in my SRT bag. I usually just attach it to my braking carabiner for going up, with my descender then going in my SRT bag. My shock cord is in fact 'last years' cows tails, with the short cows chopped off after the sheath rubbed through on the barrel knot of the short.
I've seen people mess up the 'French' technique of just using your hand jammer.
It's not so much the dropping of the jammer, but of getting confused and loosing situational awareness. The big risk is that you unclip the long cows from your hand jammer when it is on the rope, to clip into a bolt etc., then unclip it again and assume that because your hand jammer is on the rope, you have a point of attachment there! I've seen people both prussic up a whole rebelay length with no connection between their hand jammer and harness, and also end up in a 'no point of attachment' situation at sloping ledge rebelays, walking their hand jammer up with nothing else on.
Alkapton
Member
ian.p said:
If I am ascending and for some obscure reason want to go back down the rope I could (and have) reverse prusik but I find this extreamly knackering. So I'll change from long to short cowstail, remove chest jammer and hang from short tail. Now I can rig my Stop as high as possible, as close to hand jammer as possible, I do not lock off the Stop. I change cowstails back so one of two things happen, either I end up with my weight fully on the Stop and I'm happy, I remove hand jammer and absail down or else the Stop slips down the rope and my weight is fully on long tail, if that happens I can rig in a second breaking krab, lock off the Stop remove the hand jammer and carefully start to descend (after un locking of course). So I do not scare myself if I am on a slippy rope.
Also passing knots (either direction) is slightly easier if one hangs from short cowstail, well it seems so to me.
ian.p
Active member
right theres a much simpler easier and safer way of doing it:
1.Put descender on rope beneath croll (as close as possible)
2.stand up in footloop remove croll (note make sure your hand jammer is far enough up that you can remove your croll but not so high that in step 3 your weight comes onto your cowstail).
3.sit back down onto descender
4.bring hand jammer down to descender
5.test descender
6.remove jammer and abseil of
no need to faff around with cowstails the important thing is to keep it simple the most dangerous situation you will need to change over in is if the pitch has been engulfed in a flood if thats happend you will have to change over quickly and in a manner where it is very difficult for you to cock up in such a way that you end up dead. in the above you cant unclip yourself compleatly from the rope and you dont have to rely on a single point of atachment. in yours you are reliant on a sinlge point of atachment whilst you rig your descnder and if somthing goes wrong with switching your cowstails over you could easily stand up in your footloop take your croll of and then sit a very long way down....
1.Put descender on rope beneath croll (as close as possible)
2.stand up in footloop remove croll (note make sure your hand jammer is far enough up that you can remove your croll but not so high that in step 3 your weight comes onto your cowstail).
3.sit back down onto descender
4.bring hand jammer down to descender
5.test descender
6.remove jammer and abseil of
no need to faff around with cowstails the important thing is to keep it simple the most dangerous situation you will need to change over in is if the pitch has been engulfed in a flood if thats happend you will have to change over quickly and in a manner where it is very difficult for you to cock up in such a way that you end up dead. in the above you cant unclip yourself compleatly from the rope and you dont have to rely on a single point of atachment. in yours you are reliant on a sinlge point of atachment whilst you rig your descnder and if somthing goes wrong with switching your cowstails over you could easily stand up in your footloop take your croll of and then sit a very long way down....
jarvist
New member
^- what Ian said!
We teach this on new students first SRT ever in the trees.
The key thing to avoid getting hung up in doing this manoeuvre is to position your hand jammer at the correct height (you need about ~20cm of slack in your shock cord, but not too low otherwise it's not much protection), and to rig your descender really close to your croll, typically by pushing the slack through once you've rigged it.
New people find it very confusing to get the rope rigged the correct way up / without a tangle between croll and descender, you sort of want to pass a bite across in front of the descender and then rig with this new active end.
On dry rope in the trees, stops typically creep along the rope, so we also teach to hard lock.
We teach this on new students first SRT ever in the trees.
The key thing to avoid getting hung up in doing this manoeuvre is to position your hand jammer at the correct height (you need about ~20cm of slack in your shock cord, but not too low otherwise it's not much protection), and to rig your descender really close to your croll, typically by pushing the slack through once you've rigged it.
New people find it very confusing to get the rope rigged the correct way up / without a tangle between croll and descender, you sort of want to pass a bite across in front of the descender and then rig with this new active end.
On dry rope in the trees, stops typically creep along the rope, so we also teach to hard lock.
Quote Alkapton, If I am ascending and for some obscure reason want to go back down the rope I could (and have) reverse prusik but I find this extreamly knackering. So I'll change from long to short cowstail, remove chest jammer and hang from short tail. Now I can rig my Stop as high as possible, as close to hand jammer as possible, I do not lock off the Stop.
If I'm reading this right, are you hanging off just the top jammer after removing croll and putting on descender? I've always bene instructed to avoid this situation.
If I'm reading this right, are you hanging off just the top jammer after removing croll and putting on descender? I've always bene instructed to avoid this situation.
cap n chris
Well-known member
Alkapton said:
Three questions spring to mind:
1) what book demonstrates the changeover procedure you mention in the post before this one?
2) if it's not from a book, were you taught this manoeuvre on your weekend course?
3) which region does the instructor who was happy with your technique come from?
barrabus
New member
droid said:
ianball11 said:
The only time on rope where you should have only one point of attachment is when abseiling.
As an example, when you get to the top of a pitch do you take your Croll off whilst hanging from your footloop jammer before or after you clip your cowstail to the traverse line?
droid said:
Seems massively risky to me.
Firstly he has to swap the cowstail connected to the hand jammer from long to short. He then presumably stands up in the footloop to take weight off the croll and then sits down onto the short cowstail connected to the hand jammer.
Now imagine for a moment that you cocked up attaching the short cowstail to the hand jammer. When you go to sit down on it you will get a pretty nasty surprise as you plummet to the bottom of the pitch unattached to anything.
I appreciate that the risk of cocking up attaching the short cowstail to the hand jammer may be small but anything that involves swapping over bits of string in the usual cats cradle of SRT gear seems to me to add in a serious additional risk. Not to mention that even if successful he only has a single loaded jammer as protection while attaching the descender.
