French Wrap

Fairfield

Fairfield

Participating member
Location
Bucks County pa USA
Has anyone tried useing a French wrap connected to your leg strap for a break when decending on a srt? In this case when useing something such as an eight or rack. My Batt.Chef has me testing it out for the local S.W.A.T team it has worked fine to this point ( have not had time to do a long decend yet.) If anyone has feed back I would like to hear it good, bad, and indiffrent.
 
On really long descents you might want to use the weight of the rope to help work the wrap. The weight of the rope itself at 7 pounds per 100 feet can
be used to pin the French Wrap in a released position
below the hip with the tail of the rope going over your
right hip. This allows you to use both hands to work the
rack adjusting bars, or to add and subtract bars on the run
without stopping the rappel on a hot rack. Usually I will
use a foot control method by hooking the tail of the rope
around my right boot when doing this

have fun and go slow.
 
This is a case of name proliferation. This friction hitch is also called an Autoblock and French Prusik by English speakers. The French call it a noeud machard. (The French do not always capitalize personal names.)

The generic name in French for what we call friction hitches is noeuds autobloquants. I can imagine a dialog:

English climber: "what do you call this?"

French climber: "A noeud autobloquant."

English climber: "Ok,it's an autoblock."

It is not necessary to speculate about the name French Wrap. You can read it here: www.cavediggers.com/wrap.pdf

It sgould be obvious to arborists that the Machard Tresse is based on the Machard Hitch.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Has anyone tried useing a French wrap connected to your leg strap for a break when decending on a srt? In this case when useing something such as an eight or rack. My Batt.Chef has me testing it out for the local S.W.A.T team it has worked fine to this point ( have not had time to do a long decend yet.) If anyone has feed back I would like to hear it good, bad, and indiffrent.

[/ QUOTE ]

To answer that question: I have not. But, be patient... There will be some positive feedback.
 
I was on a guided rappelling tour of a gorge and we were set up with what you're describing (with an figure8). Worked great. I keep meaning to experiment with it and consider using it for a work scenario. (you could avoid locking off the 8 when you want to stop) I thought the weight of the knot from your leg strap would make you unbalanced, but it didn't seem to for me.
 
Well just got back from a rock climbing area. Tried it out and thought that it worked great. Now to be fare about it I was coming down from about 70ft. Things that I noticed about it was that after a continues decent it does losen up alot but by pulling out to the side before letting go it will lock it up. By pulling out to the side you have your hand above the wrap (same place as if you are tending it). In the mourning I will e going back out to try it again from another height and also I will be trying it with the rope bag hanging from me instead of it being at ground level already.

The other thing I did want to try with this idea is to attach the wrap to the bag and see if that would work also. Keep in mind I know that that would have no practical use for tree climbing but I am doing this for a SWAT team. The less things they have to take off them self when entering a window the better.

I am thankful for the thoghts on his topic so please keep them coming. I keep telling the guys that do the training for rope work to intergrate diffrent styles of climbing and they never have looked closely at tree work. Hopefuly I can open there eyes a little bit.
 
looking through the ANSI standard, i could not find any literature that speaks to back up on descenders. Do any of you have any literature about descenders? When using the French wrap, does the loop on the leg need to be rated for life support?
 
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Do any of you have any literature about descenders? When using the French wrap, does the loop on the leg need to be rated for life support?

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Don't belive you will. It's a caving and rescue worker thing, prob some other types have rules for it also.

And yes it is supposed to be life supporting.

Here is a good read
 
That is an interesting site that you sent me to holly, I wish i had a better knowledge of how racks work. My only experience has been with the munter (sp?) hitch and a fig 8.
 
I think that everyone will have a hard time finding ansi/osha/nfpa standards or regs on caving. They all tend to leave the cavers alone seeing how there is no one sure fire way for the standard people to do things under ground. Seems like all standards only apply to above ground work.
 
There are generally no regs for caving as it is a sport rather than an occupation. The same would apply to rec climbing in trees. It used to be the same with rescue and intervention (SWAT type stuff), they could use any equipment that was 'fit for purpose' but the health and safety has caught up on them and now it all has to carry a CE mark and the like.
 
If your doing some bits for a SWAT team, try and source some Qiuck Out karabiners - they are great for getting out of rappel quipment in a hurry as you can release them under a full load.

Best place to find them is at paragliding websites (if you were in the UK I could get you some ;))
 

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people have gotten tired of me talking about the F8/ revolver. (see thread bout a page or so back) wanted to report that I am still climbing on it, have not gotten bored with it and been Working SRT everyday!
 
no, not yet, had to make the purchase of a locking revolver first. would like to see that robot live before throwing money at it from a picture.
 
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