I wrote about carrying a bothy shelter as part of my When It All Goes Wrong kit a few weeks ago. I have a 2 man and 4 man bothy at the minute but have been on the look out for a larger version. Sportpursuit have listed 2, 4 and 8 man versions of the Lifesystem Adventure bothy. All around 1/2 of the normal price. I have used one of the older Lifesystem shelters in the past and they are a cracking bit of kit.
Tag: rescue (Page 13 of 13)
I ordered a copy of the White Water Safety Movie form Eddyline Films a few weeks ago after watching part of it (5-10 mins) at this years Tyne Tour.
Written, presented and produced by Bruce Jolliffe and Dougie Shannon the DVD aims to bring a realistic, no-nonsense introduction to white water safety to you.
Bruce and Dougie took a group of real students to the Spanish Pyrenees with award winning cameraman Paul Diffley, and recorded the coached demos and live practise to highlight what you really need to know to get to grips with this material.
The DVD was edited by a television professional with no knowledge of white water safety to ensure that the examples are as clear and concise as is possible.
White Water Safety from Bruce Jolliffe on Vimeo.
A tape knot is pretty much the only knot to use with lengths of climbing tape to form a loop/sling. Any other knot is prone to more slippage than the tape knot. Dyneema tape should only ever be stitched and should not be knotted.
Start off by tying an overhand knot in one end of the tape. Just make sure that there isn’t any twists in the tape. It’s also good practice to have plenty of spare tape at the free end of the knot to account for any possible slippage. I like to have 10-15cm spare.
A prusik loop is a length of 5 or 6mm cord tied into a loop using a double fisherman’s knot. Prusik loops can be any length but using a length of rope between 120cm and 160cm will give a pretty flexible system.
The knot must be tied with a rope of diameter less than the main rope. So if you are using an 8mm or 9mm throw line you need to be thinking about a prusik loop made fromm 5 or 6mm cord. The closer the cord and main rope are in size the less efficient the system. You also need to balance this against using a cord that is so thin that a. its breaking load is quite low, and b. it could cut through the main rope.
I made a couple of new loops today. Each one takes only a few minutes to put together. The 5mm cord used in the following images is manufactured by Marmot and costs only £0.60 per metre. The first step was to cut the cord to length and then seal the ends using a lighter. I cut my cord to approximately 150cm long.
On arriving home from work today I was greeted by a package sent by Rapid Kayaks.
Within the package was one of the new NRS Green knives. If you are not familiar with the NRS range your really need to check it out. It’s pretty hard to get hold of it over here in the UK but Rapid Kayaks do have a good selection of their kit.
We are about to run a series of articles on the kinds of kit that paddlers are carrying to get them out of a tricky rescue situation. We are therefore very interested to hear about what kit individuals/groups are carrying/using.
If you are interested in contributing to the series then please either leave a comment on this post or visit the Unsponsored Facebook page and leave a message there.
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