7mm cordelette for making cows tail?

[SDcaver]

Yes- only one! It is easy to think two since there are two ends, but those two go to one single loop in the middle. One failure and you are going for a ride. Dave Merchant explains this in his Life on a Line 2, and shows how to tie a cowstail with two bottom loops.

[hank moon]

More fodder:

http://www.speleocrasc.it/crasc02trilonge.htm

I don't know what it says yet, but looks interesting(ish). Bunch of colored spiky graphs and pictures of tied cowstails. How can you resist?

[Extremeophile]

Yes- only one! It is easy to think two since there are two ends, but those two go to one single loop in the middle. One failure and you are going for a ride. Dave Merchant explains this in his Life on a Line 2, and shows how to tie a cowstail with two bottom loops.

Yes, one connection point, but isn't the loop where it connects to the D maillon roughly double the strength of either tail?

Having two connections to the D maillon doesn't change the fact that the D maillon itself is a single connection point, but I believe strength matters when you're considering the safety of one or two points of contact.

[Anonymous_Coward]

This thread kind of makes me want to stop caving. Isn't there some kind of kill switch built in so we can put this one out of its misery? I vaguely recall that if we mention Hitler or spectra cowstails that maybe this will all just mercifully stop. Where's Ron Miller when you need him?

[Extremeophile]

This thread kind of makes me want to stop caving.

Maybe that was the point ... more virgin cave for the rest of us.

[Anonymous_Coward]

At least now there is an understandable goal! Carry on...

[Extremeophile]

At least now there is an understandable goal! Carry on...

I guess it's like religion ... I know I have the one true cow's tail, and the rest of you are all going to hell. I feel some responsibility to save you all from this fate, but you don't seem to want to be saved.

[Anonymous_Coward]

It's like they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him use a dynamic cowstail.

[SDcaver]

My mistake I guess. I thought that this forum was for anyone to discuss caving topics- and specifically rope stuff in this section. I did not realize that the topic should appeal to everyone (or the "right" certain people apparently). I guess I did not know that you HAD to read every post as well, I assumed that if you did not want to read something you simply did not have to open the thread. Silly me....all this time I should have been posting on the threads that I chose not to read, telling the folks involved in the discussion that they were boring me and please move on. As cavers we only do so much, so naturally the same topics are going to pop up.

[Anonymous_Coward]

Geez Marc, relax! Why so uptight? I was only funnin'.

[NZcaver]

By definition, SINGLE Rope Technique means at least part of your system will only ever use one point of contact with no redundancy. Just sayin'.

I wouldn't personally use 7mm cordelette for cowstails. Or Spectra endorsed by Hitler. I prefer 9mm dynamic.

[Stan Allison]

I guess I don't understand why anyone would intentionally choose to use static cowstails instead of dynamic cowstails or argue so strongly for the use of static cowstails. Even the die-hard static cowstail proponents don't make the argument that static cowstails are better than dynamic cowstails, they just make the argument that static is good enough. Static is good enough most of the time, but there are situations where dynamic would be safer. I can't think of any situations where static would be safer.

I know that I shouldn't clip my cowstail into a bolt and climb above the bolt to the extent of the cowstail as that could cause a FF2 if I slipped. While I know that right now while warm and sitting in front of my computer, I know that when I'm cold, wet, tired and in water, I sometimes can do silly things. If I did that silly thing I would want to have a dynamic rope cowstail.

My question to all of the static rope cowstail proponents is what are the advantages of static rope cowstails over dynamic? If there aren't any advantages of static, why not use dynamic?

I hate to agree with Derek on this issue, but at least I feel good that I'm contributing to Andy not caving any more and leaving more virgin cave for me!!!

[LukeM]

Static rope is usually more durable, but I haven't seen that used as a reason yet. Usually when I see someone using something other than dynamic rope for a cowstail it's because they were too cheap to consider buying something other than what they have on hand or they just don't think much about the components of their vertical system and made the call independent of recommendations.

With that said, I use dynamic rope, and would recommend it to others. I base that on pretty much the same exact premise that Stan just laid out.

[Anonymous_Coward]

FWIW, I use 9mm dynamic cowstails. In the past, I have used static cowstails and even (look away if you are squeamish) spectra slings as cowstails. I didn't really feel unsafe using any of this, and would use any of it again in the future if that's what I had available. It does seem that dynamic rope cowstails are "best", and that will continue to be my first choice if given one. When I was trying to be funny (remember, always a bad choice on cavechat) I just meant that the subject matter is tired, and has been rehashed many times. I did not mean to piss anyone off, especially Marc.

[Extremeophile]

I did not mean to piss anyone off, especially Marc.

I'm guessing hunting season must have just ended.