Belaying accident and aftermath
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Tim Lutz wrote: So if my partner wants to hip belay me, should I ask to look at their ass?If the size and rotundity of the ass is shown to greatly impact the quality of a hip-belay, I would insist you look at their ass like your life depended on it. However, knowing how hard my girlfriend can punch, one's life may also depend on not looking at their ass. Choose wisely. |
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frank minunni wrote: Wow!!! Aren't you the almighty of climbing safety. I've known a lot of climbers with lots of experience and are safe that have maded mistakes over the years. Accidents do happen, even to the very safe, over the course of a long climbing career. Hopefully none are disastrous. After the description of the belayer in question and his feelings and actions in the aftermath, it's pretty obvious that he takes this very seriously. For you to make such a harsh judgement, especially when you don't know the details of the incedent is pure ignorance. You should take your holier than thou shit and pronounce yourself the God of belays. Maybe you could start your own little church.You nailed it bud, you drop a climber belaying means you suck at belaying, simple really, and I am in fact an ordained minister in the church of the sub genius , so there! |
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Greg Maschi wrote: You nailed it bud, you drop a climber belaying means you suck at belaying, simple really, and I am in fact an ordained minister in the church of the sub genius , so there!Sounds more like you're the minister of the church of "I'm perfect and everyone else should be too." |
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frank minunni wrote: Sounds more like you're the minister of the church of "I'm perfect and everyone else should be too."And when it comes to belaying that's exactly right. |
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Then humans shouldn't be involved |
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So I have tried to recreate the cinch failure and was unable to do it. That doesn't mean that it isn't real. |
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Healyje wrote:Petzl: It's when you pull the brake side of the rope that the cam rotates to brake the rope.You keep comparing the Cinch to a Grigri, so I can only assume you've not used one or understand how it operates... The Petzl statement does not apply to a Cinch in the same way it applies to a Grigri: A Cinch will only guarantee to lock if there's rope brake tension AND tension against the device (through the attached carabiner). The Grigri (at least unmodified for rope-solo), will lock with rope brake tension ONLY. (Quick test: feed a rope thru either device but don't attach to anything, then pull (apart) hard on both ends of the rope. The cam on the Grigri will engage, the Cinch will do jack squat). This is why people have been able to use an unmodified Cinch for rope-solo (against the recommendation and all), but not a Grigri. HAFE's conjecture about diagonal pull illustrates this point, where there maybe very little or no tension against the belayer/device unless the cam engages (at which point, the full fall force will transmit to the belayer & the device attached). This is also why there's all this change on the recommended belay methods like turning it sideway or upside down: they make it easier to load the device from the rope pull for the more common climber/belayer orientations (of course they also partially defeats the easy of rope feeding). But realize these only mask the deficiencies, not eliminate them. |
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I think it is telling that trango switched their cinch instructions recently for the clip in to have the device flipped upside down with the climber side coming out of the bottom of the device rather than the top like it was originally instructed. I think it was the german DAV that originally came up with this method of flipping the device to increase the reliability of it locking. This wasn't highly publicized and I wonder the number of people who still use the old method. |
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frank minunni wrote: Sounds more like you're the minister of the church of "I'm perfect and everyone else should be too."Competent belaying does not require perfection , simply competence.If you are implying that you might catch my fall, I hope to never share a rope with you sir. |
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rgold wrote: By now we have ample evidence that almost all these devices will in some cases fail to perform as expected, usually because of an identifiable belayer action, but in some cases for reasons that have remained unexplained although endlessly theorized about.Could you link to any of these? I'm curious. I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of "unsolved" cases which are a result of people panicking and squeezing the grigri. Belayer looks away for a second, climber falls, belayer tenses up and squeezes the handle with their thumb, cam doesn't engage. (obviously you should always be watching your climber, but shit happens) A lot of people use the thumb divot on the handle as a default position, when it should actually be there only when you're feeding slack. |
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Greg Maschi is a troll. You are way over simplifying this whole thing. The OP asked if it was possible the cinch had a design flaw. IT DOES. Your comments are annoying and counter productive. |
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Greg Maschi wrote: Competent belaying does not require perfection , simply competence.If you are implying that you might catch my fall, I hope to never share a rope with you sir.I wouldn't worry about it. Since I have so little experience, you probably wouldn't want me on the belay. |
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hmmmm ... a few points that i made a few years ago ... |
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^ This |
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So basically, using summary above: |
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Jake Jones wrote: I do. Works fine. All my climbers are still alive and prefer my belaying with a Cinch (the horror) to anyone else with any other kind of device. I would say I've caught upwards of a few thousand falls now on a Cinch. No close calls, no complaints. I wonder what could cause this strange phenomenon?what strange phenomenon? That the low rate of occurance means you are anecdotally in the number of climbers that hasn't dropped someone with a cinch? Why would trango change their instructions if there was not a real problem? I was just like you a few years ago. Adamant that there was nothing wrong with the cinch after having caught hundreds of falls over a ~4 year period. then one day it didn't catch when my climber slouched into the rope. She didn't deck, I had a full grasp of the rope and burned the shit out of my hand but held on with no help from the cinch. I can only hypothesize the rate at which she slouched into the rope was approximately the same rope speed as when you are feeding slack so it didn't catch. The device requires a tug or rotation to catch, which the new attachment ensures due to the orientation of the rope. Why the insistence on using a method the manufacturer no longer condones? |
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I assume "sichern" is the German verb for belaying, just translated too literally in this case without the climbing context |
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Paul Hassett wrote:So basically, using summary above: 1. If used in the "modified" configuration, the safety is essentially on par with a gri-gri 2. The device will wear out over time - as all do, and users should periodically inspect their devices (ropes, harnesses, belay devices) to ensure safety. 3. The feed configuration lends itself to quick feeding, and does not introduce a significant bend as seen in other devices. We are all so informed, and need to decide whether to accept this design. 4. "Tons of failures". This particular site, while damning some for repeating things until they are true, seems to come to consensus based on little else than who says things most often, and the most loudly. If you are interested in actually delving into the sites that your search brought up, you would see the device was endorsed by outdoorgearlabs.com, the Alpinist, etc. Not sure if you believe these are condemnations of the device, but they do not appear to be. While I am not naive enough to believe that there is a data clearing house that tabulates the various failures of climbing belay devices, I would suggest that "tons" of people have been belayed by this device without incident. Do paralleling these two concepts, both of which are completely subjective, offset one another? 5. Regardless of above, the issue still lies in the application/use of the device in the hands of a human - much like a car. When you run into the back of someone is it the failure of the vehicle which was designed to accelerate foward, or of the human who was texting or looking at something else? 6. The argument regarding whether the device cams with or without a carabiner is moot - when do you plan on utilizing either device without it being attached to a carabiner? It is not as though an ATC would would particularly well without a carabiner either - does that make it an inferior device as well? Then again, perhaps just threading the rope through any of these devices and walking away is tantamount to the belaying skills of a large number of people now climbing.well paul if you actually used yr google translate-fu on the DAV article you would quicly realize that 1. they collect all this data from their associated climbing gyms in germany about accidents 2. they basically said the cinch was the "most prone" to user error 3. they arent a shill "gear review site" but the largest alpine club in the world with extensive testing, research and data collection also when a grigri wears ... it still provides some braking as many old sport climbers can attest to ... as the wear is more spread out on the camming surfaces ... the cinch its all focused on that pin ... honestly no one except for maybe trango (and they aint talking) has the same data on indoor climbing and belaying as the DAV with the cinch and other devices all these issues are well known with the cinch and have been for years call it "user error" if you want ... but even the DAV says its the device most prone to such just give someone an ATC and call it a day but this is MP where everyone MUST be right even on accident threads in the face of actual data ... |
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bearbreeder wrote: well paul if you actually used yr google translate-fu on the DAV article you would quicly realize that 1. they collect all this data from their associated climbing gyms in germany about accidents 2. they basically said the cinch was the "most prone" to user error 3. they arent a shill "gear review site" but the largest alpine club in the world with extensive testing, research and data collection also when a grigri wears ... it still provides some braking as many old sport climbers can attest to ... as the wear is more spread out on the camming surfaces ... the cinch its all focused on that pin ... honestly no one except for maybe trango (and they aint talking) has the same data on indoor climbing and belaying as the DAV with the cinch and other devices all these issues are well known with the cinch and have been for years call it "user error" if you want ... but even the DAV says its the device most prone to such just give someone an ATC and call it a day but this is MP where everyone MUST be right even on accident threads in the face of actual data ...This is the key point. Trango quietly changed their instructions, and have been mum on the whole thing. Malcom Daly who used to post here regularly also avoided the discussion when asked directly about the issues and their experiences. |
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redlude97 wrote: This is the key point. Trango quietly changed their instructions, and have been mum on the whole thing. Malcom Daly who used to post here regularly also avoided the discussion when asked directly about the issues and their experiences.and he even visited the site not too long ago Malcolm Daly |