Harness broke during fall

You’ll get no fight from me, sirs / madams. I know it should be all about compromises between comfort and weight (and cost). It definitely should function as advertised even if it’s labeled “ultra light” by the manufacturer.

The fuzzy stuff matters too like wear and tear, age, barely there load carrying capacity, scaled back redundancy,etc.  Appears here it was the gear loop that served as backup. Anyway, it’s  ever closer to that perfect storm.

Again, curious as to whether BD makes a recall - as everyone is.

Ultra light harness is for ski mountaering and Alpine climbing. Very few if any falls and mostly rappelling. Not a project harness. 

Well Nick the ones I had were marketed for sending your project and I put tons of air time in them. At no point did I expect them not to perform.

There is evidence (from the world of sailboat rigging) of Vectran UV-degrading even inside a polyester cover: it seems that some of that light gets through, and Vectran is one of the most UV-susceptible fibers.  That's largely why Dyneema has taken over, even though Vectran has some other enviable qualities. The light fabric over the Vectran mesh may not have done enough to keep out the damaging sunlight.

Good point, Ben. Reminds of shirts with SPF/UPF ratings.

No doubt, a long-time climb-gear manufacturer like BD is aware of most all of the life-span-expectancy factors. Designing for ultralight tends to bring most every one into play.

I think the one I have is the couloir? we got them for the Grand and used them for some alpine 5.8.   As with all of our gear the lighter you go the less rugged it is.   I know sport climbers who  still buy 10.1mm ropes for projecting and new routing. I personally don't go below a 9.8 for projecting though I am totally fine climbing an easy alpine climb where I know I won't be falling with a single 8.1mm half rope. 

As for most of failures like this, there is always a stack up of factors….UV, use/wear, flexing at stress concentration points, etc…,but I’d really like to know the ultimate explanation for all the splices/fabric discontinuities in the waist belt.

Edit to Bill Below:  yes, I’m very curious if it was an intentional design “feature” and why.   I can’t fathom that some sort of fancy conical design geometry for “comfort” in a lightweight harness overrides simplicity and safety.   But we all await the final word from BD

No doubt, there are people out there with experience in assembling something like a harness from soft goods. That’s not me.

Still, the human waist isn’t like a right circular cylinder at the cross-section of a harness waist band. And force directions from falls add complications in distributing load. Perhaps the splices enable a modicum of comfort after otherwise reducing the comfort rating with all other things designed in to reach “ultra light” status.

In other words splicing could afford a better fit to form which sounds better to me than something that could lead to pressure points in the ultra light world - unless it leads to breakage of course.

(post-limited for the day)

Edit: Took an old Petzl Adjama harness and cut off the two outer layers of fabric covering one half the waistband plus a little towards the other half of the waistband . Underneath is an inner rubber-like layer sewn (?) to an outer webbing layer. No splices in webbing. Still, I would not call this harness an “ultra light” harness.

The Petzl Adjama waistband - pictures included - looks much more substantial than David’s busted one even ignoring the splicing in his. Not surprising at the difference for sure. Just an illustration of the kinds of design decisions that go into “ultra light” gear. We’re lacking of course a direct test comparison between the two.

Any words from bd? 

So you’re saying I should permanently retire my circa 2010 BD momentum?

My 3cents.

There is NO EXCUSE for this failure and I have been traumatized by the very idea that any harness could fail in normal use (as described by the OP).

Something is very, very wrong with this design.

Lightweight Harness = not comfy to hang in but should still meet all strength requirements for a given number of UIAA test falls (like a lot of them).

That's it. No other criteria other than comfort ie bulk should be sacrificed in the construction, imo.

I do like mine in the latest fashion colors so the girls know I'm the emotionally intelligent type, however.

Unfortunately, they don't often come in extra lard-ass sizes.

@OP thanks for posting. You are saving someone's life potentially.

Jabroni McChufferson wrote:

Any words from bd? 

I’ve only been able to hand over the harness to local BD employees here in South Africa this week. They’ll ship it to the US for testing and evaluation, so it’ll probably take a bit of time until we get feedback.

David Menken wrote:

I’ve only been able to hand over the harness to local BD employees here in South Africa this week. They’ll ship it to the US for testing and evaluation, so it’ll probably take a bit of time until we get feedback.

Oh good.  And I hear it's best to hand over the murder weapon to the accused murderer.  Totally unbiased.  

Apparently, unlike ropes, harnesses are not tested to multiple falls: UIAA Harness Testing. Or any falls: as I read this it is only statically tested. In the documentation, forces are gradually applied (3).

Greg D wrote:

Oh good.  And I hear it's best to hand over the murder weapon to the accused murderer.  Totally unbiased.  

Your comment implies that the OP was dumb to send it to BD. I assume you had a better idea on figuring out why the harness broke. Can we hear it?

Jeremy L wrote:

Your comment implies that the OP was dumb to send it to BD. I assume you had a better idea on figuring out why the harness broke. Can we hear it?

Boy don't you sound smart. I sure would want some independent non biased testing done from a company other than the manufacturer whom might just try and cover their ass.

BigCountry wrote:

Boy don't you sound smart. I sure would want some independent non biased testing done from a company other than the manufacturer whom might just try and cover their ass.

Evan, I'm assuming we're both stuck indoors w this winter storm so I'll engage. Which independent, non-biased company would you suggest to send it to? All I hear is yap yap yap from Monday morning QBs that are certain that they have the answer. MP forums tagline should be "plenty of critique, low on solutions"

Black Diamond has a history of providing detailed reports when something wonky happens with their soft goods. Example. So I do hope that the company provides the public with a similar report here, because this incident is not common and is quite alarming. Sending a defective product back to the manufacturer is pretty standard in these situations, as the manufacturer knows more than anyone how the product was supposed to be assembled, and is in the best position to troubleshoot.

On the other hand, a little skepticism might be warranted. Most of the posts on their QC blog are 8 or 9 years old at this point. And the beacon recall scandal from a few years ago cast some doubt on their QC process. But I think it's quite reasonable to send the harness in. I hope we get a report soon.

BTW, were any of the threads in the broken harness pink? the above report reminded me that certain nylon turns pink when it's contaminated with acid, and it can be a sign that it's compromised.

Jeremy L wrote:

Evan, I'm assuming we're both stuck indoors w this winter storm so I'll engage. Which independent, non-biased company would you suggest to send it to? All I hear is yap yap yap from Monday morning QBs that are certain that they have the answer. MP forums tagline should be "plenty of critique, low on solutions"

There’s may also be some things BD is just in the only position determine. Like if a machine caused a flaw (say an undetected tear in the material) in the manufacturing process. That kind of thing could affect other climbers and it could be an issue where a recall would be appropriate.

You have to have some faith here and assume BD doesn’t want a bunch of their harnesses suddenly exploding on a bunch of people. That would be worse for them (financially and as a matter of PR) than this single incident where no one was seriously injured. (So there isn’t any real money at stake in this individual case even if it was, hypothetically, 100% their fault).

Greg D wrote:

Oh good.  And I hear it's best to hand over the murder weapon to the accused murderer.  Totally unbiased.  

For multiple reasons it is appropriate in such situations to return a defective item to the manufacturer for evaluation. While there could be bias, it is still very much in their best interest to try to accurately determine what the problem was here. Now that they have been put on notice of a potential problem and the harness has been sent back to them for analysis, were they to just 'blow it off' as not their fault when there is, in fact, a manufacturing or material problem, their liability would be enormous were there to be any future failures,