New Rope, plate and weights for SaltFree

[samdive]

I am going rope shopping at the fisherman shop with my Dad this weekend for a new SaltFree rope. We need a new one as a) ours is too thick to work reliably with the counterweight system I have in mind and b) it is getting a bit frayed and knackered

My plan is to buy the same kind of rope (as it has not stretched, rotted or changed at all in 18 months) but slightly thinner. It needs to be a bit thinner so that it will work with the Ascender better and thus the counterweight system I have in mind. It will also fit everyone's lanyards better if it is thinner.

We will also be getting a new plate as we need one that is strong enough to hoik you up by the lanyard and cannot fall off the rope. If anyone can make one out of perspex that would be cool - or if you know someone that can. It needs to be a full disc, without the slide on/off option our current plate has. It will still have a strobe on it. To start with, I intend to get some barbell weights like they used in Nice, paint them white and just stick a strobe on top.

Does anyone else have any thoughts/preferences on the type of rope? do you like the yellow? should I get something different?

The old rope will probably get chopped up and go into service as warm up lines (replacing the blue crap) or something unless someone would like to buy it.

any thoughts/opinions gratefully received

Sam

 

[laura storm]

Yellow works well with the low viz .. anything fluorescent would be groovy.

 

[samdive]

might use some flourescent tapes this time and some on the bottom plate.

Ideally I'd like a see through perspex bottom plate so we can put the light underneath it away from any lanyard entrapment problems - anyone know where I can get that?

 

[Longfins]

Hi,

My current training rope is 3/8" (9.5mm), braided, and white. It fits my grip well. I found 7/16-1/2" too thick and hard to store. I think Kirk Krack's traveling teaching rig uses 5/16" (8mm) but am not 100% certain. But they are short (40m) and doesn't have to work with a counterbalance; mine and yours do. When he uses his rig for competition he puts on the 1/2" rope.

My bottom plate is 8" diameter. Don't make it bigger than that or else it'll be very slow to haul up when you activate the counterbalance. I use 25lbs net weight to haul my big fat a$$ up and between that, other drag (some from the plate) and some rope friction my terminal velocity is ~.65m/sec. Certainly more weight will bring me up faster, but I run my rig and transport it with a kayak so I don't use a lot of weight. IIRC Kirk's rig use 40 lbs net weight(40lbs on the comp line, 80lbs on the counterbalance side).

Peter S.

 

[samdive]

thanks Peter - good info as usual!


S

 

[samdive]

we have a new rope and for some reason I marked it to 110m ...... big plans clearly...

also got the makings of a counterbalance - will have a go at putting it together next weekend.

photos of a sunny afternoon spent stretching and marking rope at my parents place (while they tried desperately to also listen to the cricket!) are now on the gallery

http://www.geocities.com/samdive/NDCrg.html

make sure you all look good next weekend - gonna take loads of photos!

S