What is "life rated webbing"? I have never heard of this ever before. There is 1" tubular, 2' tubular and 1" flat webbing that is most commonly used. All have there uses.
Look at the specs and see if it is "approved" for use for rescue.....some of these "webbings" are not...and I for one wouldn't bother carrying it if it wasn't...same thing for carabiners....I like the 15:1 rule..breaking strength should be 10-15 times the intended use.....
More inportant that steel is the rating for its use....and a locking one is a must....remember never/ever put horizontal pressure on it....the gate will fail...always allow the pressure to be applied on the long axis.....always allow for redundancy....if one thing fails there is a back-up for everything.......
If you actually break down all the systems that we rig, we are nowhere near a 15:1 rule. 1/2" rope starts at about 9000# MBS, but put a knot in it and you cut it in half. You just took your two person rope and made it a one person rope. The same goes for most of the rest of our riggings. I am all for safety. We all over engineer out systems. We broke down our systems and individual components, we were lucky to end up with a 6:1 overall ratio. This is using all G rated gear.
Jason CMC rescue rope (12,5mm) 1/2 inch has a rating of 9,891 lbs...the average man (rounded up) 200 lbs...thats 49,455:1....The line does not automatically "lose" 50% when knots are applied provided said knots are tied correctly and are the right knots....Single person...figure of eight on a bight....2 person...double figure of eight....This is the main-line....then you would have your Safety line as well...Any additional personell would go down on a separate line...you tie in to the mainline using butterfly knots and using prussiks.....Thanks....forcing me to go back and think about the tech rescue course a bit.....LOL Paul
Yep. The rule of thumb is 10:1 on hardware such as carabiners and 15:1 on software such as webbing and rope. And Paul is correct...depending on whether you use the right knot you can maintain your strength as high as 100%.
No thats a very good point and I do but its nice to have more so I can quit making small hasty harness. But I will continue to train my but off, to make me the best firefighter I can be. REI is having a good sale this weekend so I had to pick this stuff up.