Joe Newton

I remember the Malthusian prophecy from GCSE geography!

As long as it wasn't black pudding.

She had sausage last night.

You can aspire to better than that.

Have a Snickers, Dave. You're not you when you're hungry. I'm simply advising learning the industry best practice first to get the fundamentals right. You're not naive enough to believe I've gone my whole career by the book. I'm a freelance climber first and foremost. The problem with dogmatic people like the OP is that they'll simply pick the advice that suits their opinion. Everyone does to some extent.

Bold statement, but I'd be lying if I didn't feel like we're living a prequel to Equilirium...

Criminally underrated film.

I give up. Buy whatever feels nicer in your hands. Thank God i put my helmet on.

Not when 50m of 12mm rigging line is £75 with a WLL 380Kg

To use your hypothetical: If a textile item is rated with an MBS of 20kn (MBS being the minimum load an item may fail at from new, not taking into account wear, uv degredation, cycles to failure etc) then the WLL would be 2kn, using the common safety margin of 10:1. You would already be loading your equipment (forgetting for a minute that you're using dynamic climbing rope not designed for arb work) over its Working Load Limit. That's not taking into account fall factor or dynamic loading. Take a few evenings to read up on what Rich and myself have suggested. There's plenty of stuff you might find interesting.

I've often thought that an IRATA style training system whereby Level 1 (new) climbers must work x amount of hours under the supervision of a L3 (experienced supervisor) before progressing through L2 (unsupervised and competent) to L3 Our current system is a bit "survival of the fittest) which in hindsight has worked out well enough for me.

Spot on, Rich Let's also remember that Tree Climbing&Aerial Rescue is a prerequisite for Chainsaw from a Rope & Harness. Both of which are required before you can do Aerial Rigging. But sure, let's let candidates start rigging when their climbing or cutting competence hasn't even been assessed...

They're pretty solidly built Stubs. Had mine for a few years now and it's sound

*Puts on helmet to prepare for the inevitable collision with a brick wall* Firstly, the customer does not get an option wether to pay for aerial rescue provision/someone to rig for you. Climbing solo is generally frowned upon, and frankly you've nowhere near the experience to be messing about like that. You've stated that you have no comprehension of the strength of the ropes needed and the forces involved. This is a fairly considerable part of what your rigging course will teach you, if you listen. In the meanwhile, the candidate curriculum for the rigging course is freely available on the City & Guilds website. Download it and take a look. The Technical Guide for Rigging and Dismantling operations (TG3) is available as either an E-book or hard copy from the Arb Association website. This includes the up to date industry best practice and is largely what the Rigging course is based upon.

Perfectly put. It's a fine line between making an enemy of your local TA who may or may not understand that they work for the tax payer. I've met too many who beleive they can dictate what works are carried out in a CA without justifying a TPO.

Personally, in the absence of targets if leave it as is. Not a great business model, granted

You're northern, you're about as likely to spend money on recommendation as @kram

My experience differs. I swapped to long gaffs a couple of years ago and they were too sharp. I'm not a stomper by any means but on soft timber i was having to wiggle and yank my gaffs out each step. They're much nicer now they're a bit blunt.

There's also noticeably less drag from the system when ascending compared to the wrench/stiff tether. Perhaps not much of an issue for chest harness folk, but as a neck tether renegade it's nice.

The ability to remove it from your system without dismantling the hitch etc being the main one. Lovely for swapping between SRS & MRS for advancing anchor points. The soft tether allows you to collapse the system with one hand for pulling slack through from above, which could be awkward with the wrench/stiff tether especially with a flat line angle. You just pull down above the freexion to disengage it and collapse the hitch at the same time. You can also adjust the friction settings on the fly without taking it off the rope if you need to. I haven't had to yet, but it's an option if you notice your hitch starting to wear or if weather conditions necessitate it.

I love the RRP as an SRS device but i find it hateful on MRT. Advancing anchor points with it is pretty bad. I bought the freexion as a bit of an experiment but the RRP hasn't had much of an outing since. The freexion has a few nice advantages over the wrench.

That's personal preference mate, Sewn e2e orient a lot nicer with a lot of configurations. If you're using a rope wrench with a double leg tether you'll struggle to fit 2 fisherman's onto a carabiner. Tied correctly, there's next to no sitback. You need to properly dress and set the hitch to get it to perform. I'm running it with a Freexion device (same concept as the wrench) and I'll choose that most times over the rope runner.

As per Steve's advice. Get a hitchclimber setup. Learning knotcraft in your early years will be invaluable. Hitchclimber with a 70-75cm eye to eye with a catalyst hitch is my go to.

Perhaps if I were a rank amateur I'd go for that size. It's a retrieval ball for an item I haven't owned in years. Can't bring myself to get rid of it.