breakaway flipline or harness

STEVE_LAMBERT

STEVE_LAMBERT

I need to take down a huge Douglas fir tree with extensive butt rot. The tree is located in a city park and needs to be pieced down. I plan to gaffe up the tree using a belt and flipline, with a lifeline attached to an adjacent tree. In the unlikely event that the fir fails while I'm in it I would like to have a system that will break away with a stress load of approximately 100 lbs. This will relieve me of having to worry about unclipping or cutting my flipline in time. Any experience with trigger release snap shackles or similar devices. HELP!!!

p.s. I would certainly plan a test run :-)
 
Dave Spencer suggested one of the simplest break aways a few years ago and I haven't heard of a better idea since.

Use plastic shower curtain rings between your lanyard and saddle. Add a couple if you need more strength.

the thing that you want to consider is what piece of hardware is going to go zinging around if the break away does trigger. If you keep your snap or biner on your lanyard you could get clocked by the hardware. One idea that's tossed around is to eliminate the snap/biner and use the shower rings instead.

It would be a pretty simple test to find how much strength there is in one, two or three rings.
 
Phil,

I have actually put animals in a pillow case and safely removed them from the tree. There have been other times that I have not been so fortunate.

Steve
 
Hi Steve!

I'll through two more at you:

1) Tie a release hitch with a "rip cord" that you can pop loose quickly

2) Use a buckingham break away saw lanyard as your lanyard. It should tear at 200# or so. /forum/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
I'm not convinced about the break-aways cited - if you slip just a little whilst climbing, the force could easily break the rings.

Then a backwards swing could give you a nasty injury when you connect with your other anchor tree - what is the angle and distance of attachment?

This could be worse if you fall before the slack has been tended from the other anchor.

In such situations, I use a lanyard with a french prusik adjuster as an auto block, for easy slack tending; I just clip a micro pulley and cord above the hitch. I then take the knot out of the end of the lanyard. If I need to bail out, I just grab the cord and everything takes care of itself - the pulley collapses the hitch until it pulls off the end of the lanyard. At least in pratice stunts!

Similarly, if I fear a barber chair, the release pulley is clipped across to the other leg of the lanyard with a sling and krab.

Be sure to replace the stopper knot on safer ground!
 
The break away setup would only be used in a situation where a complete hands-off cut is being made. IF an event triggered the need for a break away I think that things would be happening so quickly that it would be impossible to reach down and manually grab the hitch.

When I think about a break away I think of a system that would be used on a cut by cut basis. Not repeated a lot. The trick would be to find a release that can hold body weight but break just a little beyond that.

Even after talking about this occasionally for many years I've never heard of anyone ever having the occasion to use a break away. It's great to have all of the brainstorming ahead of the need though.
 
Hey Steve, welcome to the Buzz!!

There was a thread on Arborist Site by a fellow who designed an elaborate quick release setup.

You guys have come up with several simple and workable ideas. There have been several times when I've had the need for a similar bailout option.

I have a $4 snap shackle from Lowe's that would work well. I use it for my Big Shot quick release, it works as well or better than the 10x the price Wichard.
 

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Having an automatic release seems much better in a dicey situation than having to pull a trigger. We all know how quickly things can go pear-shaped. There probably wouldn't be time to pull the trigger. Or...things could get so jumbled that the release could be out of reach.
 
Shower curtain rings? Slickline? These are very unknown items to be using. I'm all about thinking outside the box, but I think shower curtain rings are pushing it a little. This is something that's designed to save you when all he!! breaks loose in the tree.

If it was something I wanted control of, I'd clip http://www.bosunsupplies.com/products2.cfm?product=S0170 onto my right dee with an aluminum ring hanging from the opening end of the shackle and just let it hang there. I keep my friction hitch on my left dee. Most the time in the tree I'd clip the snap of my flipline to the dee like normal. If I thought this could be a tree-splitting cut, then I'd clip into the aluminum ring of the shackle. There of course would be a large, handy pull cord dangling from the pull ring.

If I wanted it to just rip when needed, I would simply incorporate a tear-away sewn sling into the system somewhere. You can get them designed to tear at whatever loads you like.

love
nick
 
Not too long ago I was doing a removal and I had to take the lowest limb off first (limb 12-15" diameter, only about 15' off the ground.) The tree was so fat, so I lanyarded into that limb at its crotch.
You probably see whats coming....I didn't under cut enough, and it ripped passed the undercut, snagged my lanyard, and wanted to take me with it. The tip hit the ground, and the butt settled in my lanyard, which pulled my chest into the stub. It sucked a$$! I could've been badly hurt.
Couldn't lift lanyard up cuz limb was too heavy, so I cut it with my handsaw. I was tied in with my climbing line directly over head. It was scary, and like Tom said, happened soooooo fast.
My old co-worker/mentor/removal foreman/role model once said, "I've been doing trees for 15 years, and I still don't know it all. I learn everyday." He also said that he asks God every morning to not let him get hurt. And he's the biggest bada$$ I know. The guy is a stud.
Anyone have any pictures of a break away lanyard?
 
I've got a snap like Nick showed but it's mad of brass and is quite small. The release lanyard is a piece of yellow cord sewn into a U so that it is quite stiff. My idea was that I would be able to grab the lanyard or the brass snap would break on it's own.

Like I said before, if anyone does use a break away be sure that you take any hardware off the end of your lanyard. If I ever have to make up a break away I'm going to take some 3mm accesory cord, poke it through the end of the lanyard rope and make a loop for attachment. It would be bad enough to get whipped in the face with the end of a rope. With hardware you could get hurt badly.
 
Thanks to the thread about finger traps, I was reminded about breakaway swivels we used when pulling cable. I actually have these part #'s in my palm pilot(yep, ex-geek here. well, I'm still a geek, I just don't earn my bacon that way any longer). 7/8" diameter swivel body is catalog #39298, and the 200# break kit to match the body is catalog #39302. If I recall correctly, the swivel body is about $25, and the pin kit(10 pins total) was around $20. I wish I could post a pic, but I can't find that outside of greenlees pdf's on their website.

SC
 
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