Descenders

[danthecavingman]

The reason I don't like stops is that they are unpredictable (in my opinion) on anything but dry, worn in rope. On new rope they can be excessively quick. On wet rope they behave erractically, suddenly dropping you a few metres then seizing up again. I have a roped access background and was fine using a stop for work on reasonable rope outdoors in fair weather. The few occasions we worked in rain, the stop became a nightmare. This is why I don't cave with one as frequently caving ropes are wet.
If I have already posted to this thread and am repeating myself I apologise, but the thing roped access taught me was the versatility of the shunt! Use a rack and tow a shunt down with you.......it works!
Safeguard yourself at pitch heads when rigging - with the shunt on your cowstail!
Safeguard your descent - with a shunt on a cowstail!
Dropped a jammer and cant get it back - use the shunt on a cowstail!
Need to line someone up and down - use a shunt!
Shunts have many uses in rescue situations as well, they are invaluable in hauling systems.
Someone will no doubt tell me what is wrong with shunts now but as far as I know they don't really have many drawbacks.

Dan.

 

[Andy Sparrow]

Thanks for the contribution. I agree absolutely with your comments on the unpredictability of the Stop with different types of wet/dry rope. I don't share your enthusiam for the Shunt but then I don't have much experience of using it.

Need to line someone up and down - use a shunt!

Dan.

But I have to disagree with this. There was a rescue in Swildons some time ago following an accident on the Twenty. A large man was being belayed with a Shunt on his ascent of the pitch when he became exhausted and fell. He was left hanging from a belt under the waterfall while the lifeliner struggled to lower him down. The Shunt had locked solid under the load and would not release so, in desperation, the lifeliner pushed harder on the handle causing it to suddenly release. The climber fell injuring his back. The problem with Shunts, which to my mind makes them entirely unsafe for belaying, is the inability to release and lower in a controlled way.

 

[cap n chris]

Andy you're a menacing presence; apparently I'm a forum hero.

 

[Frog]

Having read all the stuff on here I just wanted to say as regards training on a stop I was trained by Andy Sparrow and he taught us in an emergency it was both hands up. This meant left hand up and off the stop so avoiding squeezing it in panic. Right hand up holding the rope so braking on the braking krab.
This training has stuck in my head proving that good training works. (See Andy I was listening)
Andy did point out the dangers of the stop but as our training was so thorough we all felt confident in its use.
Also as my hands are fairly weak I dont think squeezing the stop handle too hard would be an issue for me.

 

[SamT]

Need to line someone up and down - use a shunt!

Dan.

But I have to disagree with this. There was a rescue in Swildons some time ago following an accident on the Twenty. A large man was being belayed with a Shunt on his ascent of the pitch when he became exhausted and fell. He was left hanging from a belt under the waterfall while the lifeliner struggled to lower him down. The Shunt had locked solid under the load and would not release so, in desperation, the lifeliner pushed harder on the handle causing it to suddenly release. The climber fell injuring his back. The problem with Shunts, which to my mind makes them entirely unsafe for belaying, is the inability to release and lower in a controlled way.

Would a stop be a reasonable device to use in this situation. :wink:

 

[epik]

Safeguard your descent - with a shunt on a cowstail!

Dan.

Petzl advise against using the shunt to belay - its not meant for that use and isn't releasable as Andy has mentioned!

That said if you are going to use it be aware that they are designed to slip at 3kN (to prevent the user ever receiving more than this in shockload) so make sure you dont let any slack get into the system or the resulting load in the case of a fall could cause it to slip and fail!

They are useful bits of kit though!

 

[Andy Sparrow]

Need to line someone up and down - use a shunt!

Dan.

But I have to disagree with this. There was a rescue in Swildons some time ago following an accident on the Twenty. A large man was being belayed with a Shunt on his ascent of the pitch when he became exhausted and fell. He was left hanging from a belt under the waterfall while the lifeliner struggled to lower him down. The Shunt had locked solid under the load and would not release so, in desperation, the lifeliner pushed harder on the handle causing it to suddenly release. The climber fell injuring his back. The problem with Shunts, which to my mind makes them entirely unsafe for belaying, is the inability to release and lower in a controlled way.

Would a stop be a reasonable device to use in this situation. :wink:

Oddly enough, yes (subject to certain criteria).

 

[danthecavingman]

Fair points about the shunt. Any situation where someone was left hanging would result in a shunt being difficult to use.
Andy - have a play with a shunt they can be used for all sorts of different techniques. They are definitely useful for protecting abseils when you're on a rack. Useful in rescues as well.
A half loaded stop is very useful for belaying peole as it can be locked off easily. Having thought about it, a half loaded stop is probably one of the best ways of lifelining someone as even if they fell unconcious, you could easily lower them off to the fllor without undue difficulties.
Although not the best thing to use for lifelining my favourite for ease and simplicity has to be an Italian hitch.
Going slightly off topic - no hang on I'll start a new topic!

Dan

 

[potholer]

Though I wouldn't know how much more predictable or smoother a bobbin might be, I haven't found Stops to be particularly unpredictable or jerky, even across a fair range of rope sizes, wetnesses, etc, apart from maybe on patchily-dampened dry rope, which does seem fairly rare underground, but may be more common in rope access.

Even when faced with the cases in a descent of a long or stiff rope where the down-rope needs a little lift to get things moving, with a resulting tendency for a jerky descent as each handful of rope is lifted *or* a tendency for an increasing-speed descent once static friction has been overcome, I've found that vibrating the right hand back and forwards along the down-rope usually leads to a fairly good descent.
Even if the rope ends up passing through the Stop in a series of rapid, small pulses, the stretch of the rope and the inertia of my body seem to smooth things out fine.

However, I think there is certainly something to be said for initially training people on a Bobbin to get them used to *really* not letting go of the down-rope, and possibly to slightly reduce the number of things they have to learn at one time. (I wonder, would traning with a Stop on very slippy rope be almost as good?)
Even though I always press the Stop handle fully in (apart possibly from the occasional short and ultra-slippy 8mm descent), I guess some other people may end up drifting to use the handle as a speed control even if they start out well-trained in Stop usage, and if there's no way of knowing who those people are in advance, it's hard to know what the safest descender for any one individual might be.

 

[SamT]

I've found that vibrating the right hand back and forwards along the down-rope usually leads to a fairly good descent.
Even if the rope ends up passing through the Stop in a series of rapid, small pulses, the stretch of the rope and the inertia of my body seem to smooth things out fine.

Its a common technique at the head of a large pitch when the weight of the rope has a tendancy to have a braking effect.

As my mate once shouted down Rowter hole whilst out with a relative begginer -

"make like your wanking".

 

[potholer]

Well, I *had* thought of that analogy, but decorum intevened.

 

[SamT]

decorum - caving

:?: :?: :?

 

[potholer]

I was just thinking - I wonder if people who don't wear usefully-thick and well-fitting gloves when abseiling are more likely to develop a habit of using the Stop handle to control descent, to lessen abrasion on their right hand?

 

[SamT]

I hardly ever wear gloves whist descending. The friction needed is created by the device - not your right hand - therefore there should be no need to wear gloves.

Heres a thought - is it actually a problem to use some extra braking from the stop by releaseing your left hand slightly on say a very slippery descent. Of course with the proviso that the the user is well versed on the fact that its their right hand that provides the main control.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Left-handed abseilers reading this should replace the word right with left and replace the word left with right.

I hope all you presumptuous right-handed cavers feel guilty when some left-handed novice reads all this, follows it to the letter and crashes to their death. :wink:

 

[potholer]

I don't think it's a problem to *very occasionally* use the handle for descent on fast ropes, but much of the time there are alternatives - if there is sufficient slack in the rope below and both legs aren't needed for manouvring, it is often possible to wrap the rope around the right leg, emerging over the top of the right foot, with variation in friction from crossing the left foot over the right (trapping the rope between the wellies), and/or by bending the right leg.

On the gloves issue, surely with a Stop the right hand will usually provide some friction, or at least be susceptible to abrasion?
If using a braking crab, if a rope is sufficiently fast to require the rope to be lifted, the rope will usually be running through a hand under some kind of tension.
If not using a braking crab, the friction of the mechanical part of the system is fixed by the nature and weight (tension) of the rope below. Friction from the hand and/or from running the rope around the body can increase the tension in the down-rope, and so increase friction in the descender.
Overall, varying the friction to control descent does need something variable to happen outside the descender, whether around a body or via a hand. It may not be a lot of friction that is needed to increase friction in the descender, but if a rope is at all gritty or glazed and rough, it can still be uncomfortable to hold.

Personally, most of the time, I'd prefer the quick response of a gloved hand with the ability to grip firmly without worry about rope-burn to other kinds of friction, but I know other people have different preferences, and have probably developed different techniques.

My ponderings were more along the lines of:
Are there *some* people who abseil with bare hands who might be tempted to use a Stop handle as an additional speed-control device a significant amount of the time, and/or to lessen their right-hand control for comfort reasons?

 

[Peter Burgess]

I think I'll grow two more limbs. Sounds like they might come in handy one day.

 

[Johnny]

Its a common technique at the head of a large pitch when the weight of the rope has a tendancy to have a braking effect.

As my mate once shouted down Rowter hole whilst out with a relative begginer -

"make like your wanking".

I remember that.
I have been thinking, whilst reading this lot, that anyone who has ever belayed a climber or ab'd with a bucket or fig 8 or similar will have drummed into them speed control by feeding the rope through the device, thats where I came from and I have never had an issue with using a stop.

I think that a Stop is very easily, quickly and effectively locked off. In fact, for me, that is the main use for the handle/friction cam.

 

[SamT]

Left-handed abseilers reading this should replace the word right with left and replace the word left with right.

I hope all you presumptuous right-handed cavers feel guilty when some left-handed novice reads all this, follows it to the letter and crashes to their death. :wink:

A stop is, pretty much, a right handed device.

You *can* use it left handed but incure a couple of problems if you do.

a : you cant see the bobbins as you thread everything, its all on the underside.

b : if, as is correct - your stop is clipped to your D to the left of the croll - the croll is now in the way of the handle.

Im not saying it cant be done - its just not really designed/setup for left hand use. In this case - prehaps a rack is better.

 

[Geoff R]

Glad Im not left handed ....

Ive consistently heard various people say that you always SRT in gloves and always use the Stop handle as a stop/go (as if you did not have this handle and were using a Simple) and always use a braking crab. Maybe this is just our Club. Using a Stop with 10mm rope, a normal braking crab did not seem too effective, it worked ok but why expend effort, so I bought myself a steel Raumer Handy (alpine caving technique page 45 ?) which seems great and I keep a normal steel for other occasions. One thing Ive noted, always using a braking crab keeps my hand movement always in the same direction to add friction. Comments ?