Custom Tether Design

[Cpt Pat]

I use a Spinlock safety line that has three carabiners and a loop, similar to the one shown in post #10 above. To connect the safety line loop to my harness, I use a stainless snap shackle. Unused carabiners stay connected to the bale loop on the shackle (NEVER connected to the loop or harness!). I attached a release line to the shackle pin that has multiple small knots for "grippage" (some people use beads - but they look more likely to snag and cause an unintended release). I call this release line the "suicide release" because of the likely outcome if I ever release in the water when sailing single handed.

When entering the cabin, I pull the release line to freely move about once inside. Then all I have to do is re-close the shackle on the harness before going back on deck. I wear a Spinlock harness. I insist on a harness that has leg straps. For the same reason I want leg straps on my parachute harness when skydiving - so I don't fall out.

Two suggestions:

1) Once you have a harness and shackle in mind, have someone hoist you off the ground a few inches. Make sure the harness doesn't restrict your breathing or cause you extreme discomfort, and that the shackle actually releases under load.
2) Remember to release the tether before trying to jump off the boat during docking. I did that once after a long voyage. The results were very embarrassing.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

...When entering the cabin, I pull the release line to freely move about once inside. Then all I have to do is re-close the shackle on the harness before going back on deck. I wear a Spinlock harness. I insist on a harness that has leg straps. For the same reason I want leg straps on my parachute harness when skydiving - so I don't fall out.
...

The leg loops on a Spinlock vest are only rated at about 25kg each, wet. There is a warning that they are not for falls or being dragged through the water, because they will fail.


If you want to make them hold a fall, you will need something different.

https://www.practical-sailor.com/iss...s_12518-1.html


Stupid? Yes.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by thinwater

The leg loops on a Spinlock vest are only rated at about 25kg each, wet. There is a warning that they are not for falls or being dragged through the water, because they will fail.


If you want to make them hold a fall, you will need something different.

https://www.practical-sailor.com/iss...s_12518-1.html


Stupid? Yes.

Better than no leg straps at all. The need for the leg straps is to keep me on the boat while I'm laying on deck stunned or unconscious. Not to keep me aboard while I'm dangling off the side or body surfing in the boat's wake. My tether isn't long enough to go allow me to go over the side while still inside the harness. I don't want to wake up in the water after I slip out of a legless harness.

The "suspension test" I recommended was only a worst-case situation test. Someone else may have a tether that's too long.

It's truly stupid to use a harness that you can possibly fall out of. Something I'd picture Wily Coyote doing. Funny in cartoons - stupid in real life.

I agree, the harness depicted is stupid. What is that, a home-brewed harness made out of quicklinks and spare webbing? It appears the wearer is being strangled. If all full harnesses were like that, skydiving would have never become a sport. My parachute harness would be perfect, except the suspension points are at the shoulders and the galvanized hardware won't survive seawater. I've taken 4 or 5 Gs in that without more than a few bruises during reserve parachute openings (the Gs did suck my shoes off).

On US submarines, they use (used?) parachute-style harnesses for deck crew. Does anyone have suggestions on other harnesses that have leg straps, purpose built for sailing? Preferably with an integral PFD?

[Benz]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Proline is the Wichard tether carabiner. Tangos are found on several sailing tethers and are used for via ferrata climbing. Neither are wire gates and thus could not have been the ones I was talking about in the later sentence. Neither of these have plastic gates and can stand perhaps 5x the side load a wire gate biner can. They are far more rugged than the average climbing carabiner, as proven by UIAA 121 type K testing.



Rails are a secondary clip for added stability. The long tether would still be on the jackline. And this option has saved lives around the pulpit, for example, when a 6' tether is too long.



I've been clipping slings one handed for 35 years. You would have to show me video of you clipping a sling, in the spray, in the dark, with gloves, on a heaving deck, with one hand. I'm calling BS on that. Might happen, but not a robust plan.


--- Do what you like. It is far better than nothing. But no manufacture or standards group would agree that clipping with a non-locking carabiner as your sole attachment point is OK. There are better ways. It's not that wire gate carabiners are not widely available. Wichard and West Marine know of them and Kong makes them. Racing sailors are very weight conscious and know of them. They just don't use them. You say snap shackles can come off.



One last thing. I've got a broken non-locking biner on my bookshelf. It was clipped to a sling, but during the fall the gate rotated against the rock and was pressed open. The carabiner then failed at its open gate load, which is very easily exceed. It was a nothing fall, like a top rope fall. Fortunately, I had another piece just below. I keep it there, on the book shelf, to remind me that sh_t happens.

Ah--thanks for the clarification: I was unfamiliar with the Tango, and thought it was another Wichard product, possibly with a wiregate, since you were talking about those biners when you mentioned ice climbing with wiregates...anyway, you can see where your paragraph could be misconstrued.
I'll have to disappoint you on the video: any conditions that bad would kind of shut down a cameraman. But no worries: I'm not so insecure as to need people to believe me. In fact, I get doubted and called BS on (improperly, I'll add, since I don't tell lies) all the time on this and other forums--welcome to the club.
As far as standards groups--well, they're always trying to make every single thing idiot-proof. That's fine, for idiots. But experience and good judgment trump any set of standards set by any group of self-appointed standard setters. Look at the rodeo clowns over at the AMGA, or the whole ASA circus, or ABYC. But perhaps this is a topic for another thread, if anyone cares to start one to discuss it there.

Anyway Thin, no hard feelings: you're entitled to your opinion, just as I know I've earned the right to mine. Keep safe out there, and I'll see you around the forum.