Cavechat.org

Its at the shawnee outfitters in carbondale, IL.
Not sure I would use it if you paid me.

Spelean Whaletail...................anyone have experience with this dinosaur?

too bad gary storriks site is gone. Would make a great heat sink for long drops......

*Edit* found it. all credit should be to gary storrik @ http//storric.cnc.net.

The Spelean Whaletail is the earliest commercial whaletail in my collection. It is cast from aluminum, and has a single safety gate.
The friction on a whaletail can be varied by changing the number of bars in use; however, since the bar spacing is fixed, this is not feasible at the top of a long dop where only the top bars are in use (configuration #1). In addition, the bars cannot be jammed together like they can on a rack, so that mode of stopping is not available. On the other hand, the whaletail dissipates heat better than a standard rack, is slightly faster to rig, and is much stronger.

*wow* talk about cross posting!

Very cool, I did not think you could buy one of these anymore.

Here is a link to Gary D. Storrick Vertical Devices webpage on this Whaletail:
http://storrick.cnc.net/VerticalDevicesPage/Rappel/FixMultiPages/FixMulti409.html

and yes, Gary's website is back

So, should I buy it as a conversation piece?

Chads93GT wrote:So, should I buy it as a conversation piece?

Oh hell yeah

I asked him why he had it and he said he used to sell a book called "Rappelling" and that device was featured in the book. Since southern illinois has tons of cliffs to rappel, people automatically assumed that was the "to have" device so he sold them. This is the last one that never sold I guess. Cracks me up everytime I go in and today i finally decided to take a photo of it.

Chad,

If you don't want it *I* do. I'll pay you for cost and shipping.

wyandottecaver wrote:Chad,

If you don't want it *I* do. I'll pay you for cost and shipping.

LOL, you beat me to it.
I would love to rappel on one of those.
Bringing that out at the top of a pit would be a lot of fun.

Hehe I think I'll definately go back and get it, take it to TAG in Oct and approach Buddy Lane and say "Got any pits I can do on my new rack?" then whip that bad boy out.

Hmmm, that's actually one rappel device that I don't own. But I'm trying to cut down on collecting stuff anyway.

That is so cool! I love the name too!
NZ - if you need to cut down on gear maybe I need some of it still! you should pm me what you want to get rid of!

An old time gadget fellow Kyle Isenhart had one and brought it to Fantastic pit in Ellisons. It was an early model without the safety gates, he rigged in, took his Jumar off the line and swung out over the drop. The heavy rope simply popped out of the device and he began to free fall. The jumar still in his left hand with the cam open was slammed on the rope stopping a certain death fall. He only fell about 5 feet and ended up at eye level with the balcony. He clammored up, borrowed a Cole rack and did the drop. When he reached the bottom he realized just how close to death he had come and had a case of the shakes for quite some time. Whaletails are great as an accessory in a bar fight, for caving they are a waste of good metal.

ON_ROPE wrote:An old time gadget fellow Kyle Isenhart had one and brought it to Fantastic pit in Ellisons. It was an early model without the safety gates, he rigged in, took his Jumar off the line and swung out over the drop. The heavy rope simply popped out of the device and he began to free fall. The jumar still in his left hand with the cam open was slammed on the rope stopping a certain death fall. He only fell about 5 feet and ended up at eye level with the balcony. He clammored up, borrowed a Cole rack and did the drop. When he reached the bottom he realized just how close to death he had come and had a case of the shakes for quite some time. Whaletails are great as an accessory in a bar fight, for caving they are a waste of good metal.

wow...........................

I seem to recall an Aussie caver taking a bad fall when the rope came out of the whalestail in the mid-'70s. For some reason it caught on in Australia, but US cavers quickly determined it was no improvement over the rack.

Cheryl

ON_ROPE wrote:An old time gadget fellow Kyle Isenhart had one and brought it to Fantastic pit in Ellisons. It was an early model without the safety gates, he rigged in, took his Jumar off the line and swung out over the drop. The heavy rope simply popped out of the device and he began to free fall. The jumar still in his left hand with the cam open was slammed on the rope stopping a certain death fall. He only fell about 5 feet and ended up at eye level with the balcony. He clammored up, borrowed a Cole rack and did the drop. When he reached the bottom he realized just how close to death he had come and had a case of the shakes for quite some time. Whaletails are great as an accessory in a bar fight, for caving they are a waste of good metal.

Suuuuuperlucky that the jumar managed to catch on the rope. I'll make sure to take one to a barfight if I have a chance.