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So, I got bored today and started anchors with my feet (standard, right?), and then Conor questioned my use of clove hitches in slings, when I told him off for joining two slings with a cow’s tail, sparking a short Google, resulting in this:
informative image (by those efficient Germans) about the reduction in strength of slings under different situations.
Anyone care to weigh in with their thoughts on best sling practice?
Its preferable to join slings with metal but when it comes to anchors it makes no difference. If you are putting enough force through your anchor that a sling at 50% strength sling would break then you are doing something very wrong.
If you need to join 2 slings use a crab, if no crab then you can knot them to your hearts content. Unless you decided to tie all your slings together to make one giant sling that you may take a 40 ft whipper onto then you will probably be grand.
If you have literally no carabiners left, you probably have bigger concerns than the manner in which you join slings… Tbh, it was partly just reassuring myself that clove hitching slings to carabiners is cool. But yes, if you manage to put 10/11kN through an anchor, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Knotting slings is fine. People get worried about this because they start looking shit up on the internet from people who do strength testing etc and post “interesting results.” The amount of Mountain Instructors and Guides (working professionals) who knot slings on a daily basis is huge! One statement that really annoys me throughout the whole knotting slings debate is when people say “but under dynamic loading you can exert x on a sling…” – if you are causing a sling to be dynamically loaded in an anchor, then you seriously don’t have a clue what you are doing!
At no point did I dispute any of this… I just thought it was interesting.
Incidentally, the American rescue services seem to have some… odd thoughts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb04dIwgObQ
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