I know nothing about boats, but if what you’re calling the halyard is that white rope in the photo then I really wouldn’t want to be falling on it with any kind of fall factor.

if what you’re calling the halyard is that white rope in the photo then I really wouldn’t want to be falling on it with any kind of fall factor.

Correct – it’s just a static rope to ascend. Backup is the doubled, green, (dynamic) climbing rope.

Correct – it’s just a static rope to ascend. Backup is the doubled, green, (dynamic) climbing rope.

Precisely my reasoning, yes. 😁

This entire thread gives me the willies. I’ve done a (small) bit of rope rescue practice and as someone else said on the previous page it’s far more complex and far easier to get wrong than you’d first think. I wouldn’t be undertaking what the OP is proposing without proper tuition and I sure as shit wouldn’t be hitting the Internet to ask how I could do it as cheaply as possible. Prusik loops are for when you’re absolutely screwed, out of gear and resorting to pulling bits of string out of your pocket or laces out of your boots, not as a primary means of protection.

If you absolutely have to do this, I’d be getting some practice in at a controlled environment like a climbing wall before risking it ‘live’.

Let me guess – Swinsto or Simpson’s?

Correct, but I can’t remember which of the two.

They were both notorious for it (we got a rope caught up in Swinsto once).

Ah, made me all nostalgic for a clean washed streamway and the smell of carbide, that did.

My advice to the OP – if you’ve got long hair (or beard) tie it back out of the way before looking down when you’re descending the rope. Oh, how I laughed (but not at the time).

Aha, not too far off with that caving conumdrum – reckon I could’ve made it out!

Judging by that pic for the mast climbing, something like a Petzl tibloc/shunt attached to your harness would do the job. Or, just a cheap Chinese SOB from eBay. Having a taut rope would help you aswell. If you slip, it should catch then you can remount the ladder. I guess there really wouldn’t be much of a shock on it, if at all…

My advice to the OP – if you’ve got long hair (or beard) tie it back out of the way before looking down when you’re descending the rope. Oh, how I laughed (but not at the time).

Had a mate get his long, straggly beard caught in the belay device in the middle of a free hanging abseil. Good times. 🙂

Long hair in my case, rigging and leading the main free hanging pitch in Rowten Pot, a forbidding place at the best of times. I was using a Petzl Stop so, of course, gripped the handle in panic when I realised I was about to be scalped – weeeeeee/aargh.

I was using a Petzl Stop so, of course, gripped the handle in panic when I realised I was about to be scalped – weeeeeee/aargh.

Petzl have now taken that on board and the current model of Stop is the other way round, squeeze to stop and lift to go.

@boblo

I think there is some theoretical risk of the shunt slipping and once slipping it can keep slipping. From memory something to do with the external lever. I think that in theory if you invert it can also pull the ropes out or lift the stop lever. Plenty of people use or used to use them for top rope solo, weighting the rope below with a bag improves the function. Probably safer than a death modified gri gri which you can use for soloing.
I think the rope access standard piece of kit is (or was) the Troll or ISC rocker.
Other random option is the Wren soloist but the instructions make it clear that it isn’t guaranteed to work. As with the shunt tying knots in the rope below you limits the potential distance you could slip back down in the event of a device slipping.

@jaminb
Depending on where you are located, I’ll happily let you winch me up on a halyard, if we go out for a sail afterwards / before. (Ex Steeplejack and rock climber)

thanks marcus. You are more than welcome to come sailing southampton based. We need to fix some minor damage to the rigging before we go!

@boblo In the rope access world rope techs had permission to use shunts as towable back ups for years. They were used on the end of a lanyard (cowstail) and as long as they were towed by the cord on the rear they functioned well.

The problems arose when people grabbed the body or the rope and subsequently pushed it down rendering it ineffective. Others myself included tied longer cord on so we could tie bigger knots in the cord as when your gloves were slick with paint it’d always slip through.

S-tec Ducks have the same problem.

@jamiemcf Ahh, OK – ta. Operator error rather than intrinsically unsafe. A lot of kit is like that. Use it or interfere with it in a certain way and it becomes prone to failure – even the humble krab.

We used to use a double rope with a sac on the end to tension it and as short a link as possible/practical to keep the fall factor down. Oh, and no handling of rope or Shunt during ahh, ‘use’ ie when flying.

Thanks for explaining. I was concerned they were found intrinsically unsafe.

Petzl Stop

aka Petzl plummet! 😀

I loved a Stop (or a Go with slick silicone covered ropes) so versatile.

Ok the prussik knot isn’t happening I am going to buy a Goblin after watching this

Anyone care to offer a suggestion, or start a comedy thread, for a cheap harness suitable for falling off a ladder?

Thanks

I used to climb up the mast on our boat sat on a plastic kids swing, pulling the other end of the halyard it was attached to. Gaff rig so so the halyard went higher than the standing rigging. And no need for ladders or mechanical advantage on the halyard as you already have a 2:1 advantage built in.

I didn’t die, just don’t let go of the rope!

Two things to note:
This wasn’t really a great idea.
If you’re afraid of heights, a yacht mast is the worst place for it, unlike a nice solid rock face, it’s moving around, a lot! Trying to re-wire a light whilst both you and the light are penduluming back and forth several feet is not really fun 😂.

Fred Dibnah demonstrating proper use of a bosun’s chair. Chimneys not quite as bad for moving around as a yacht mast, but apparently the tall ones move quite a bit on a windy day!

I’d like to see Fred’s RAAM’s for that project!

In fact, we often complain about “elf n safety gone mad” but thankfully we don’t have any more employers sending men up to do jobs like that with as scant regard to the value of them going home safely at night!

Had to be done…makes me feel ill watching that now.

The video of Fred is worth watching; what you can do with experience and competence! I’m surprised that the [lack of] H&S law to allow him to do it and the filming technology to capture it existed at the same time.

Linked from the Noakes video was one I’d forgotten about:

“Do I wear a harness as well?”

“Well, you’ve no need to, it’s quite safe.”

👀

^^^ actually felt a bit sick watching that! Fair play to PD, doesn’t even question it as he clambers over the edge in his plimsolls 😂 And the cameraman! I’d be clinging on for grim death, not filming from there!

In the rope access world rope techs had permission to use shunts as towable back ups for years. They were used on the end of a lanyard (cowstail) and as long as they were towed by the cord on the rear they functioned well.

The problems arose when people grabbed the body or the rope and subsequently pushed it down rendering it ineffective.

Just to be clear, this isn’t the only problem with Shunts. The other ( vanishingly rare, but pretty fundamental) issue was that they could deform sufficient for the rope to fall out of them.
Which was a major downer for the person using it.

The video of Fred is worth watching; what you can do with experience and competence! I’m surprised that the [lack of] H&S law to allow him to do it and the filming technology to capture it existed at the same time.

TV is weird and well overdue for some fairly horrible accidents. On almost every job there’s some junior production manager slightly out of their depth in whatever is being filmed because they’re not an expert. One day they’ll be filming puppies at a rehoming shelter, the next it’s on a trawler in the north sea, it’s incredulous that you could be competent enough at both to write a decent risk assessment. And after a 16h day of it there won’t be a budget for a hotel so it’s a 4h drive home on the motorway.

It’s a British thing, we’re known as the Mexico of Europe within the industry for it.

Fair play to PD

Yeah. I thought he looked young so I “did the math,” I reckon he was 26 there.

Seems an interesting chap. They had a spinoff “Duncan Dares” series where they had him do increasingly stupid exciting stunts, I vaguely remember at the time thinking he must’ve been mad. But he’s a trained thesp, done loads of stage work. Lots of stuff with the scouts too.

TV is weird and well overdue for some fairly horrible accidents.

It’s had a couple. Didn’t a member of the public get seriously hurt on one of Noel Edmonds’ outings? Standing on top of a car or something, IIRC? Dancing on Ice has had a few casualties as well.

There’s maybe a mentality that thinks “well, it must be safe or I wouldn’t be allowed to do it”? I’ve thought pretty much that when jumping out of aeroplanes so it’s not a great leap (ho ho!) to assume the same when surrounded by TV cameras.

Seems an interesting chap. They had a spinoff “Duncan Dares” series where they had him do increasingly stupid exciting stunts

don’t remember that at all, I think I remember seeing him on BP but would’ve been pretty young. Basically only know him from Flash Gordon 😃 Had a quick look at his Wiki page, it mentions the Big Ben stunt as being his most notorious and implies the BBC got in trouble for it, but doesn’t give any further details!

It’s had a couple. Didn’t a member of the public get seriously hurt on one of Noel Edmonds’ outings? Standing on top of a car or something, IIRC? Dancing on Ice has had a few casualties as well.

Anything in front of the camera is generally very thoroughly risk assessed, that’s not what I meant. Although the backstory I’ve heard to this is very believable from people who worked on it https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/25/olympian-beth-tweddle-sues-the-jump-makers-over-injuries.

Thinking more about the less obvious stuff, the stupid levels of overtime followed by an expectation you’ll just drive several hours home to the other end of the country without killing yourself/others is the most prevalent.

Or the general inability of anyone to say no to an instruction. I’m lucky in that I came to it later in my career and frequently just said no this isn’t something I’m comfortable doing for safety reasons (usually something electrical). But you see a lot of things being done that really should be done by a qualified electrician or from a PASMA platform rather than hanging off a ledge.

I have a boat & I have climbed the mast solo.

I can tell that this is a euphamism but I can’t work out what it means

The Noel Edmond incident was this

On 13 November 1986, volunteer Michael Lush was killed during his first rehearsal for another live stunt. The stunt, called “Hang ’em High”, involved bungee jumping from an exploding box suspended from a 120 ft-high crane. The carabiner clip attaching his bungee rope to the crane sprang loose from its eyebolt during the jump. He died instantly upon impact of multiple injuries, and The Late, Late Breakfast Show was cancelled on 15 November 1986 after Edmonds resigned, saying he did not “have the heart to carry on”.[11] The planned episode that was to be aired that night was replaced with a showing of the film One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing

More details here

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Late,_Late_Breakfast_Show

Reading what went wrong is shocking.