Ropes and Crawl ways ???

[langcliffe]

Things are obviously a lot less formal here. There's really no safety/governing body for gear, ropes, etc. here that I know of, for caving.

Nor in the UK (and Europe generally). I think you misinterpreted someone's comment.

 

[Samouse1]

What brand/model is your 8mm rope?

As the partner in question, the ropes are mostly Beal Spelenium 8mm, which has been discontinued. I have some Beal Spelenium 8.5mm unicorn rope which is very nice, and also Beal Spelenium 9mm. I like Beal ropes as you might be able to tell. I do have a bit of Petzl 8mm Segment as well, but I'm not a fan of the creaky nature of it. Perfectly safe, but creaky.

 

[hannahb]

That's an interesting point about very static rope reducing sawing because of less bouncing.

We do sometimes accept rope rub on smooth rock in order to get where we're going, because sometimes the anchors are not ideal or there isn't a sensible solution, and in that situation we might try to prusik carefully to minimise bounce and sawing. That's with the fatter ropes. With the 8.5 mm stuff, as I understand it no rub at all is acceptable. Apart from that downside, I really really like the 8.5 mm rope.

And I agree about the creaky Petzl stuff. Their fatter ropes do it too. Gives me the heeby jeebies.

 

[andrewmcleod]

Nor in the UK (and Europe generally). I think you misinterpreted someone's comment.

There absolutely is a safety/governing body for gear and ropes, but it is the government itself over here. Shops/generally won't sell something as rope for climbing/caving that doesn't comply to the relevant EN standard. Same for helmets/connectors etc.

Now _as I understand it_ (which is quite possibly wrong) you can still stuff that doesn't comply with the EN standards but not _for_ the purposes for which an EN standard exists that it doesn't meet. So you can sell a hyperstatic 6mm accessory cord that doesn't comply with any of the single/half/double rope standards, but you can't sell it as 'climbing rope' without significant caveats that take it outside of the EN standard area. Any shop trying to sell non-CE carabiners as 'accessory carabiners' (with finger quotes) because they are a few grams lighter but only 18kN (or whatever) is opening up a whole can of worms they won't want to get involved with.

What is true is that caving _itself_ doesn't doesn't have any real governing bodies etc. (although the UIAA exists, and has a significant impact).

I realise that might be a _bit_ of a semantic argument, but the resultant difference is significant when you compare the kinds of ropes commonly used in the US and the UK.

 

[langcliffe]

There absolutely is a safety/governing body for gear and ropes, but it is the government itself over here. Shops/generally won't sell something as rope for climbing/caving that doesn't comply to the relevant EN standard. Same for helmets/connectors etc.

Now _as I understand it_ (which is quite possibly wrong) you can still stuff that doesn't comply with the EN standards but not _for_ the purposes for which an EN standard exists that it doesn't meet. So you can sell a hyperstatic 6mm accessory cord that doesn't comply with any of the single/half/double rope standards, but you can't sell it as 'climbing rope' without significant caveats that take it outside of the EN standard area. Any shop trying to sell non-CE carabiners as 'accessory carabiners' (with finger quotes) because they are a few grams lighter but only 18kN (or whatever) is opening up a whole can of worms they won't want to get involved with.

What is true is that caving _itself_ doesn't doesn't have any real governing bodies etc. (although the UIAA exists, and has a significant impact).

I realise that might be a _bit_ of a semantic argument, but the resultant difference is significant when you compare the kinds of ropes commonly used in the US and the UK.

Which is pretty much the situation in the US. My interpretation of the OP' spost was that he thought there was a UK caving "safety/governing body".

 

[andrewmcleod]

I'm not sure there are any _legally required_ standards for rope in the US?

Certainly they have easy access to a lot of rope types that would be difficult/implausible in the UK/EU.

 

[JAshley73]

As the partner in question, the ropes are mostly Beal Spelenium 8mm, which has been discontinued. I have some Beal Spelenium 8.5mm unicorn rope which is very nice, and also Beal Spelenium 9mm. I like Beal ropes as you might be able to tell. I do have a bit of Petzl 8mm Segment as well, but I'm not a fan of the creaky nature of it. Perfectly safe, but creaky.

So HowNot2 has some of the B.S. 8mm on their website. It's listed as 6.5% stretch though, so I'm guessing that might feel awfully "bouncy" compared to what I'm used to.

They have that Beal Spelenium 8.5 unicore also. It looks nice, but it's listed at 4.5% stretch.

The 9mm version of my 10mm "Greenline" is 1% stretch. I wonder if I would even notice the extra 1/2mm between those two... The Greenline is also only 60-cents a foot, which is one of the least expensive caving ropes available.

The 8mm "Canyoning" ropes get awfully expensive. If my undersanting of "canyoning" is correct, they have a lot more lateral movement, and thus, their ropes are designed for even more abrasion resistance than even our caving ropes. But, paying 2-6 times more per-foot is a big pill to swallow, for just 1mm smaller diameter...

For as little as I go vertical caving, probably not worth it...

 

[mikem]

Canyoning ropes should float as well, whilst most for caving/climbing sink

 

[ChrisB]

9mm version of my 10mm "Greenline" is 1% stretch.... The Greenline is also only 60-cents a foot

I don't think I'd be very happy caving on rope with 1% stretch. You couldn't fall very far before the forces on your body, and the anchors, became excessive, and there must be situations where a fall is possible, eg, you descend to a ledge, pull some slack through the descender and the ledge detaches, or you have 2 anchors and one fails. Is there any data on that?

Beal 9mm Spelenium is £1.9/m which I calculate as about 77cents/foot.

 

[JAshley73]

Everyone keeps bringing up falls. How often, and under what circumstances is that really going to happen?


RE the 1% stretch, it's pretty nice. When rigged to a rigid anchor, there is NO bounce, which gives a very secure feeling.

 

[hannahb]

I fell on my last trip - slipped off a traverse onto my cowstails (which are dynamic rope), clipped into the traverse line. It was a non-terrifying, bouncy experience. But I don't think that's the kind of fall people have in mind when thinking about the stretch in dynamic rope.

Anchors failing - I think that's a likely cause of the type of fall we would worry about.

Yes the 8.5 mm is very stretchy! You can spend a while leaving the ground

 

[JoshW]

2 anchors and one fails

This shouldn’t result in a shock load, if equalised as a Y hang, it should result in a small (depending how far down a pitch you are) pendulum effect

 

[ChrisB]

This shouldn’t result in a shock load, if equalised as a Y hang, it should result in a small (depending how far down a pitch you are) pendulum effect

Agreed, for a Y any effect should be small, but anchor failure on a traverse could result in a fall. Failure of a single bolt rebelay is one scenario, but US rigging doesn't use many, if any. I was trying to think why I'd be unhappy on 1% stretch. Maybe we use semi-static because we have rebelays and Americans can use fully static because they don't?

 

[Cantclimbtom]

After crawling and squeezing with a lot of rope and carabiners yesterday (luckily I ended up doing a smaller share of the can't see how sensibly you could do it without a bag, or it'd all end up a filthy mess, and quite possibly get hooked and tangled up on the journey.

At the least, even if not for crawls.. a bag is invaluable for carrying heavy kit hanging below you on pitches when ascending/descending especially if space is too tight for over shoulder coils as a coil if rope hung below you will snag??

 

[JAshley73]

After crawling and squeezing with a lot of rope and carabiners yesterday (luckily I ended up doing a smaller share of the can't see how sensibly you could do it without a bag, or it'd all end up a filthy mess, and quite possibly get hooked and tangled up on the journey.

Yup. Pretty much...

At the least, even if not for crawls.. a bag is invaluable for carrying heavy kit hanging below you on pitches when ascending/descending especially if space is too tight for over shoulder coils as a coil if rope hung below you will snag??

Well, we usually don't wear anything on our persons anyway. Packs, ropes, kit bags, etc... get either dangled below us via a tether, or, he raise/lower them after climbing or abseiling.

 

[JoshW]

fully static

Worth bearing in mind nothing is really ‘fully static’ even steel wire will stretch under enough load. Think there’s been a subtle push in various circles to move towards ‘semi-static’/‘low stretch’ terminology being used in place of ‘static’ as it’s more accurate.

Bit pernickety I know! Happy to be corrected if anyone knows of any rope that would be considered no-stretch/static

 

[ChrisB]

Indeed, as a structural engineer I know that everything stretches under load. European ropes are described as semi-static, and typically stretch 3% to 4% at 10% of the breaking load, so by comparison I'm considering 1% (not sure at what load?) as static. I was once offered some Marlow Black rope (can't say by whom) which is the kind of thing used to abseil from helicopters, and decided it was too static for SRT.

 

[Ian Ball]

If I were to carry a long rope through a walking passage cave without a bag I would butterfly coil it and wear it like a rucksack

 

[oliverdattilo]

The British Caving Association is a governing body only in the sense that that's the name given to the recognised national associations of all sports. It doesn't govern caving, there are no cave police. Some caves have gates, but that's usually because the landowner requires it or there are particularly vulnerable formations.

You use stiffer ropes because your philosophy is not to worry too much if they touch the rock. I think you may typically have longer, straighter pitches? If you were to use European/UK ropes and not worry about contact you would have broken ropes. I doubt you could safely rig a US cave with 8mm or 9mm rope because the anchors won't be in the right place for that style of rigging.

Meh. Plenty of of caves have relatively free hanging drops when rigged, and rope pads can take much more abuse than most UK cavers seem to think. If it's something super sharp I'll pad or redirect it, but usually I just go for it, and I've never had so much as a small fuzzy spot so far.

 

[langcliffe]

Meh. Plenty of of caves have relatively free hanging drops when rigged, and rope pads can take much more abuse than most UK cavers seem to think. If it's something super sharp I'll pad or redirect it, but usually I just go for it, and I've never had so much as a small fuzzy spot so far.

We rarely use rope pads, because our rigging style is such that we don't need to. The American rigging style and ropes are different to the European rigging style and ropes. The European ropes would be lethal using the American rigging style, and the American ropes would be too stiff and inflexible to make European rigging very easy. I'm not saying one is preferable to the other - just that they are different, and somewhat incompatible.