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Nasty biner flip ‘n’ unclip warning!

gfdonc

4-Dec-2009
2:37:46 PM

Hi all,
Wednesday at Arapiles we witnessed an event that still has us scratching our heads as to how it may have happened. Fortunately no-one was injured but the details are worth sharing.

Last day of a 4-day trip we decided to try Feral Chicken **22 in Central Gully. Jen led off. You’ll find other threads complaining how hazardous it is to get to the bolt, but surprisingly we found a micro-cam (WC Z3) to protect the moves off the deck, then another slightly larger cam (BD C3) behind a small flake to protect the move to the ring bolt. We unclipped the Z3 after she reached the bolt to get a straighter line of rope.

Jen then moved up and placed a wire about 80cm higher. You’ll see from this photo where the biner and draw on the bolt is sitting:

Nothing wrong there. Here it is again after she has clipped the wire:

and here’s a close-up from that shot:

The draw is a Rock Empire 15cm spectra with a closed loop at one end but no rubber keeper. The biner on the bolt is a Trango solid-gate and the rope end is a Trango wiregate (superfly). The blue loops are electrical heatshrink tubing that I use to mark my gear.

Jen got above the wire, then fell. The fall unclipped the rope-end biner from the quickdraw! The biner was still attached to the rope. She was now hanging from the single wire; if it had pulled she would have decked.

We tried to analyse what had happened. When she fell, the rope pulled tight on the belayer, who was pulled off his feet. As he was standing slightly uphill, he swung/stepped downhill to steady, and the sideways pull dislodged the cam below the bolt. The rope then ‘twanged’ across the face. Nothing really unusual happened, the rope might do that in any fall.

The only theory we have is that the biner was ‘spun’ around the rope and with enough force to rotate it around the end of the quickdraw, and unclip. Scary!

We clipped with two biners to continue. Climb safe (and carry screw-gates).
- Steve

rightarmbad

4-Dec-2009
2:53:39 PM

That's why my first bolt clipped off the deck is always a screwgate.


phil_nev

4-Dec-2009
3:04:20 PM

Bizzare!

A small point, I think If your moving up and left, the draw biner with the rope through it should probably be facing the other direction...

citationx

4-Dec-2009
3:30:28 PM

On 4/12/2009 phil_nev wrote:
>Bizzare!
>
>A small point, I think If your moving up and left, the draw biner with
>the rope through it should probably be facing the other direction...

in the first photo you'll notice that she's to the right of the bolt, so you could argue that she clipped correctly to protect the moves straight after the clip...
however, having said that i personally don't really believe in that risk as being too great. unless you've backclipped it i think there are much more probable risks to avoid rather than the direction of the rope-clipped biner. statisitcally speaking half of all falls i've seen or taken would've been taken onto a biner facing the "wrong" way but i've never seen one unclipped as a result...
(so argumentative - probably due to alcohol before the end of friday work!! yay!!)

egosan

4-Dec-2009
3:36:34 PM

On 4/12/2009 citationx wrote:

>(so argumentative - probably due to alcohol before the end of friday work!!
>yay!!)

**Raises his cup of "tea" in solidarity!


phil_nev

4-Dec-2009
4:09:33 PM

On 4/12/2009 citationx wrote:
>On 4/12/2009 phil_nev wrote:
>>Bizzare!
>>
>>A small point, I think If your moving up and left, the draw biner with
>>the rope through it should probably be facing the other direction...
>
>in the first photo you'll notice that she's to the right of the bolt,
>so you could argue that she clipped correctly to protect the moves straight
>after the clip...
>however, having said that i personally don't really believe in that risk
>as being too great. unless you've backclipped it i think there are much
>more probable risks to avoid rather than the direction of the rope-clipped
>biner. statisitcally speaking half of all falls i've seen or taken would've
>been taken onto a biner facing the "wrong" way but i've never seen one
>unclipped as a result...
>(so argumentative - probably due to alcohol before the end of friday work!!
>yay!!)

Agreed... have done the same many time.... Way to weird to even speculate, just thought that it looked like the climber may have fallen up and left of where the draw is clipped... That said, you would think the wire would keep the rope clear of the draw..

kieranl

4-Dec-2009
4:55:57 PM

It just goes to illustrate how complex the forces at work in even a fairly straightforward fall are. The real complicating factor here was that the belayer was not in a stable position to hold the fall so the system had to deal with them penduluming about as well as the jolt from the lower piece pulling.
I'm still trying to work out how the krab came off the quickdraw. Maybe as the krab was rotating through the draw the gate hit the rock, or some part or attachment of the falling climber hit the gate, springing it open just before the head of the krab passed through the quickdraw loop.
Moral is to be paranoid. It also would help to make sure your belayer is in a position to hold a fall without being pulled off their feet.

mikl law

4-Dec-2009
5:15:10 PM

maybe the Arapiles tooth fairies unclipped it?

I hate the look of that ring, I wish i'd put a Ubolt in there, so much more reliable (it's probably fine, but old technology now)

davepalethorpe

4-Dec-2009
5:20:30 PM

Guess that also shows that the rubber part of the draw is not only useful for holding the karabiner still whilst trying to clip the rope, but also for stopping it rotating and unclipping itself! Thanks for sharing.


miguel75

5-Dec-2009
4:21:09 PM

Thanks for the post Steve,

Being a fairly new lead climber my climbing buddy/mentor has advised that it's a good idea to rotate the
carabiner on the sling so it can't unclip. Easy if there's no rubber on the sling, not so easy if there is... I
must say I don't do it every time I clip but after reading this account I may just start!

kieranl

5-Dec-2009
4:41:53 PM

Rotating the krab is meant to reduce the risk of the rope unclipping from the krab. In this case the krab unclipped from the quickdraw and remained on the rope!

gfdonc

5-Dec-2009
8:31:32 PM

Exactly, that's why it's such an oddity. I'm looking at the 'nose' on each of my karabiners with a new eye now, wondering if the amount of metal protruding above the gate contributes to this phenomenon.


IdratherbeclimbingM9

5-Dec-2009
9:19:02 PM

Thanks for the detailed post gfdonc. It is cerrtainly a curious happening.

Pure speculation on my part.

If climber fell so that the waist-end portion of the lead rope descended on the 'left' side of quickdraw, then the rope may have been in the classic (as detailed in Petzl catalogues) 'self unclip' mode and actually started that process; ... BUT at that very instant the lower piece pulled, causing the rope to 'twang' under tension and spin the wiregate krab so that it let go the quickdraw instead?? ~> ('Gate flutter' and all that...).

About half the quickdraws I regularly carry and use are screwgates at both ends.
~> None have come off their placement to date, and it has been a long time since I have found one with a screwgate undone, though this has happened in the past.


bagotup

6-Dec-2009
7:10:13 PM

Great topic, great info Steve & Jen, thanks for sharing.

Brings us to the subject of screwgates in a quick draw combination.
Anyone like to share what screwgates they find nice in this scenario.

(in a semi-thread-take-over kind of a way, a search didn't find a previous one:)


miguel75

6-Dec-2009
7:14:35 PM

I read good! Thanks for clarifying that Kieranl, I skipped right over that part in the tale. It's a pretty darn
weird thing to have happen and I'm glad all and sundry are safe...


wallwombat

6-Dec-2009
7:44:35 PM

I think that's why Black Diamond now advocate that biners on draws should face the same way - there is much less chance of something like that happening.

I few months ago I was belaying a guy at Wingello and he had all his draws aligned like the one in the photo and the route wasn't particularly a straight line. It went up through an overhang and then traversed right a bit and then headed up straight. I thought each of his first three draws were going to become unclipped. It's about the only time I have been scared belaying someone on a sport route.

Now I always have the biners on my quickdraws facing the same way. I'm sure it could probably still happen but I believe there is much less of a chance than if they were facing opposite directions.

Glad no one was hurt.


JamesMc

6-Dec-2009
7:53:39 PM

Not familiar with the route but how's this for a theory?

When the cam pulls out, the rope flicks to the left. (You could check this from the direction of the rope from belayer to cam.

This makes the carabiner spin clockwise.

Rope flicks back right.

Nose of crab catches on the sling and pushes gate open.

Sounds improbable but lets say it happens once every thousand falls. The other 999 falls didn't rate a mention on Chockstone because nothing happened.

JamesMc


Phil Box

6-Dec-2009
8:19:22 PM

How about this, the quckdraw slides across the gate of the biner and then gets flicked off via the gate.

At any rate I always rotate the bottom biner on my draws. dunno if this would prevent the unusual unclipping as described in the OP.

climbingjac

7-Dec-2009
8:14:14 AM

On one occasion, as I climbed past a quickdraw, it got caught on the underside of the lid of the pocket of my cargo pants, the quickdraw opened, manouvered itself and flicked the rope out. As a consequence, I always wear climbing pants that do not feature pockets. Especially not the kind that have the folderover velcro lids as per the cargo pants I wore that day.

You can get the general idea of the type of pockets I'm referring to here:

http://www.cargopants.com/timberland+flat+front+30'+inseam+mens+cargo+pants+-+oatmeal/product-1102-/#http://www.cargopants.com/gallery/products/1102/big/1254249711_timberland_oat.jpg

simey

7-Dec-2009
8:25:03 AM

Well I think that is deserved punishment for wearing cargo pants.

There are 38 messages in this topic.