Occams releasable anchor

[paul]

paul:

You can lessen the risk of this happening by clipping the karabiner to the anchor for everyone except the last caver.

Would this pose the problem of loading the krab at a peculiar angle?

Not usually. Assuming the anchoe is artificial as opposed to a large natural belay. Effectively you start with an anchor to which a karabiner is clipped and an Alpine Butterfly is clipped to that karabiner with on side of the rope also passing through the anchor as normal.

So all members of the party except last are abseiling on a rope whcih is clipped to a karabiner via a knot loop. They can use either end of the rope but the one which isn't passing through the anchor would "sit" better.

Last person unclips the karabiner from the anchor and then clips it around the rope as usual and abseils.

 

[caving_fox]

You can lessen the risk of this happening by .......  clips in a cowstail to the anchor

Surely. Every pitch every time. Even on "simple pull thorugh trips" you must be using cowstails.

 

[Fulk]

They can use either end of the rope but the one which isn't passing through the anchor would "sit" better.

But if you clipped your descender to the other side (the rope that has passed through the anchor), then I could envisage the krab's being somehow pulled around and ending up at an odd angle. Also, this means (if I understand correctly what you are saying) that your rope is clipped into a single bolt (probably OK . . . but . . . ?), whereas I guess the optimum is to pass the rope through two anchors (preferably with one higher than the other, rather than in line with the other).