Equalette & Quad

In Long's anchor book it suggests clipping the two biners at the power point of an equalette into the individual strands. (p.166) and then shows the quad biners clipping two or three strands together. (p.172). What is the reason for clipping the biner to individual strands in the equalette? Redundancy? If so why not for the quad? Is it perhaps because the quad is so much beefier that it is not expected to fail (all 3 strands that is)at the power point?

Also, whats the vote on using a fig 8 on a bight or overhand on a bight v. a clove hitch to tie off the other arm(s)of the equalette. I like the fact that you don't have as much adjusting of knots with the clove.

Thanks J

Oh wait I may have it. Its to prevent the biners from sliding over the limiter knots? (not trolling...still like hear your thoughts on this and the clove hitch)

In the equalette you only have two strands between the limiting knots. Therefore, to achieve redundancy, you must use both of them. You cannot clip both with one biner, or a failure of one piece may lead to catastrophe. (The biner would slide out of the free end.) That's why you use two biners, one per strand.

In the quad, you have enough strands to get redundancy without having to clip all the strands because you have four instead of two.

With the equalette you can use a single locker with a magic X twist. However, that eliminates the redundancy gained by using two lockers, one on each strand. Also, in testing it was discovered using the magic X twist occasionally leads to a "clutch effect" where the magic X can bind on itself and therefore you lose equalization. Thus, the two lockers are better in that scenario too. Personally, I use the magic X twist with the equalette because I don't like having to waste the extra locker.