Help needed: ROPE & carabiners for FIM

[shnick-shnack]

Hi, I live in Egypt and try to assemble my first training equipment. I would like to order some rope in the UK which is good for FIM. The quality of the ropes I found here is not that great. So I was wondering if somebody can recommend a specific rope type (preferably available in an online shop) to me.
I am happy about every tip, also regarding the whole set-up with carabiners ect. (My buoy is round, nylon cover, stuffed with the hose of a car tyre.)


Cheers!

 

[trux]

I can recommend the rope Martin Zajac sells in his APNEAMAN freediving store - it is not a classical alpinist static rope which is usually used, and has many advantages:

- Inexpensive
- Very lightweight, easy to transport
- It floats, which makes the manipulation much easier, especially if you use a float, and do not dive from a boat
- It is signal yellow, hence very well visible
- It doesn not soak with water, and dries very fast which makes the transprort even after the dive very easy
- It comes in 10m and 12mm thickness, which allows a comfortable grip
- It does not strech noticeably. If I remember well, what Martin told me, it is somewhere around 1% (stretching around 1m on 100m)

Martin sells not only ropes, but also carabiners (though in a local marina you may get them easier and perhaps cheaper), floats, lanyards, very handy weightbelts for the bottomplate, and plenty of other freediving material. Check it out on his website:

Apnea Services s.r.o.

Specifically the ropes are here:

lano PPV 10mm - Apnea Services s.r.o.
lano PPV 12mm - Apnea Services s.r.o.

He comes often to Dahab, or can perhaps ask some of other Czech freedivers to bring it there. Shipping by a parcel service is possible of course too, but I heard rumours that the local custom officers are not quick, and in some cases may ask unreasonable fees or directly bribes.

 

[shnick-shnack]

Hi trux,
thank you very much for your quick answer. The ropes look good to me - but unfortunately the shop does not deliver to the UK. I tried to order and got the following message: "There are no carriers available that will deliver to this address!

 

[trux]

He surely does, just probably the shipping gateway software is not properly integrated. I wonder though why you want to order it for UK when you tell you live in Egypt, and have in your profile Dahab and Munich as location. In any case, shipping to UK will be certainly no problem to Martin. Just drop them a message and they will certainly come back to you quickly. If not, let me know, and I ask Martin directly when I speak to him the next time (which is relatively often).

 

[watts]

You could Ebay it through paypal and if you dont get it you get your money back. I use 12mm double braid polyester rope which has lasted years. If you can afford it try and go 14mm or more which is nice for FIM. Any weight will do for the bottom weight i use some old weights from a home gym.(free)

 

[shnick-shnack]

@trux Ha ha ha - Yes - you're right it sounds a bit confusing, but shipping parcels to Egypt is not really what you want to do. I my case a friend could bring the rope from the UK to Dahab. This is the best way to transport goods. And this is why I would prefer a shop in the UK - to make the process a bit less complicated and save the shipping cost (& time).

 

[trux]

As I wrote, Martin runs courses regularly in Sharm or Dahab (he is an Apnea Academy instructor), or has students and friends who travel there often, so delivering it to Dahab should be no big deal for him.

 

[shnick-shnack]

Hi watts,
thanks for your reply. Paypal is a good service - but I fear in any case - shipping the rope to Egypt means it will not arrive before next year .. very likely .. The problem is - we don't have proper addresses here and they open every parcel at the border... But it is good to know which rope you recommend. Maybe I find some online shops for marine ropes in the UK that sell something similar.

@trux thank you for your help. But I think this is quite an effort just because of a rope. Your friend for sure has other plans when he comes to the Red Sea than travelling with 50m rope for a girl in Dahab And to be honest - the time factor is also important for me. But I email him to find out.

 

[sanso]

Hey, has this been resolved? If not, I can send some very nice rope too -

 

[shnick-shnack]

Hi Sanso,
yes thank you - I found I rope. Martin from freedivingshop.cz unfortunately never answered to my email, but in the end I bought a 50m rope from a local freediver here, who did not need all her ropes, especially not the short ones

Cheers!