Equalette Not Redundant
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The equalette is not always redundant. Consider a two-point equalette. If the material of the equalette breaks within one of the limiter knots (where the material is most stressed), then that limiter knot becomes void. When this break occurs, the break-side of the equalette will be pulled away from its attachment and the now void limiter knot will not prevent the master point from falling. |
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Overhand knots have been pulled to failure by people who do cordage tests. Where do they break? |
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There are no perfect men. |
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I regularly inspect my cord, so I am confident it will not break under normal belay loads. The redundancy is to protects against the failure of a bolt, whose history is almost always unknown. |
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Has this failure ever happened in the field? No? Then it isn't worth stressing about. It is unlikely that you'll be the first person that failure happens to. If accidents start happening because of this failure mode, then pay attention. Until then, it is just a lab-geek theoretical failure mode. Instead of spending your mental energy worring about things that are extremely unlikely to kill you, direct it at those things which kill people all the time. Tie a knot in the end of your rope, check your knot, vet your partners carefully, place bomber gear, etc. These are the things that keep you alive, not science-project anchor setups. |
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Gunkiemike wrote:Overhand knots have been pulled to failure by people who do cordage tests. Where do they break?Ropes fail at the knot or close to it. Either way, the limiter knot is voided. I'm not trying to cast aspersions on the equalette, but if your standard of redundancy is that that the failure of any part of the system does not result in complete failure, then the equalette is not always redundant. To overcome this, you can tie a second set of overhand knots outside the limiter knots. |
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Harnesses are not redundant, neither are ropes... unless you really want to carry an insane amount of equipment, you need to trust some of your gear. |
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My bet is your thread is going to go about as well as mine, on basically the same topic: |
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Not a fan of limiter knots (although I use them from time to time). When something else fails, such as a nut placement, their role is to survive under a load configuration that is not a best practice for the overhand knot. |
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Brian L. wrote:...or more redundant...This term should be retired. Something is either redundant or it isn't - something can't be "more redundant" than something else. |
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What happens if the belay loop on your partner's harness breaks? How often do you inspect your buddy's belay loop, or your own for that matter? There's no redundancy there, unless they're mad strong and can catch a fall with their bare hands alone if their belay loop failed. |
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Marc801 wrote: This term should be retired. Something is either redundant or it isn't - something can't be "more redundant" than something else.I dunno, there's levels of redundancy here. It all depends on what failure you're looking at, and your comfort zone. Like others have said, you only use one rope. An event that shreds your anchor cord may hit your rope instead. So many don't worry about that actual anchor material failing (which they can inspect and deem usable prior to climbing), and worry more about things they can't influence, like rock quality, or bolt quality. |
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Troll? |
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I like to build my anchors so that they can survive Godzilla attacks. |
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Statistically you're far more likely to die driving to said belay station than from equallete failure, |
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I don't even know what an equalette is, but several have commented that the belay loop isn't redundant either. This is actually not true. I don't know the technical terms, but basically a belay loop is made from two pieces of webbing that are sewn together. Thus, redundant. That fact makes me feel good about life. :) |
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To be honest, you're about 5.8731 million times more likely to get dropped by your belayer then hurt by a failed equalette. As safety priorities go, this doesn't really even make the list of serious concerns and is up there with worrying about your rope breaking. |
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Eric Moss wrote: Ropes fail at the knot or close to it. Correct, the cord breaks at the entrance to the knot. The knot itself stays intact on the other strand. Eric Moss wrote: Either way, the limiter knot is voided. That's where we disagree. |
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Marc801 wrote: This term should be retired. Something is either redundant or it isn't - something can't be "more redundant" than something else.Yeah, you're right, but it's at the cost of trying to popularize the term 'redundanter' or referring to the 'redundacity'of a system. |
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Be Esperanza wrote:I don't even know what an equalette is, but several have commented that the belay loop isn't redundant either. This is actually not true. I don't know the technical terms, but basically a belay loop is made from two pieces of webbing that are sewn together. Thus, redundant. That fact makes me feel good about life. :)By that logic every sling is redundant because it is made up of a a bunch of different threads. If you understand what the word redundant means you would know that your belay loop is NOT redundant. (If you choose to use it.) |
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YER GUNNA DIE!!!!! |