Help with making sense of an interview I am translating ( Barnett system)

I am translating a text. Between the person's slang and my lack of climbing knowledge I am not sure this will make any sense. If you have valuable criticism and knowledge the Barnett System please feel free to shine some light.

Thanks in advance.

5. When were you the most scared while trad climbing?
It was on L’Estampo in Verdon, it had to have been 1980. I was soloing with a “Barnett” system made up of one 9mm rope eased by "spinning" sheath and that was connected to the rope by a Prusik on a carabiner.
I had previously discussed this technique with Patrick Cordier. He did the South Face of the Fou and since, no better technique has been developed for free climbing with an auto-belay. I only had a small rack that was composed of stoppers and some big excentrics. At the crux of the route, in the squeeze chimney, I didn’t have anything to place for pro except a sling fixed around my helmet that I bashed into the crack with my fist! A little bit higher the rope became stuck in the Barnett system. I did my best to exit the chimney and as a last resort I aided with a skyhook. A few seconds later, the skyhook popped and I went flying. I took a 30 meter fall! The prusik that I had been using for at least 30 solos failed to function. I actually had reduced the number of wraps on the prusik in order to climb more fluidly, from the original five, I had gone down to three without having tested the system. I should have only fallen 25 feet and now I found myself 90 feet below hanging from the last bit of my rope with the cordelette totally melted, blocked only by the figure 8 knot I thankfully fixed at the end. I then proceeded to dive into the most difficult psychological challenge of my life and I told myself, “start climbing right away or you will go home and not climb for a very long time”. I climbed back up to the belay, put my Barnett system back together and kept going. As an anecdote, the helmet that I had placed as protection was still there but the sling had popped, slipping between the rock and the helmet.

Yeah, the "eased by spinning sheath" makes no sense.

Here is how the system worked: the climber installed a an autoblock knot, connected to the swami (or harness), on the rope, . The rope hung down in a big loop from the climber's waist, then up through a pulley, which was worn on a chest harness; this is probably the thing that got translated as a "spinning sheath." When the rope exiting the pulley was hanging down in the climbing position, the pulley pressed against the autoblock and kept it from engaging, which allowed rope to feed out. If the climber fell, the rope swung overhead and no longer held down the pulley, so the autoblock could engage and stop the fall.

Successful function depended on several things that were not easy to get right. The spacing of the autoblock and pulley were critical, and the autoblock material itself mattered: the cord had to be very pliable in order to work right.

Ok, kinda hard to describe. IIRC, there is a picture of the setup in Royal Robbins book, Advanced Rockcraft.

Doing a tight squeeze chimney with pulley on your chest would be a nightmare all by itself.

Hexcentric instead of "excentric."

Could you provide the original text for the passage in question? I assume you are translating from French.

My guess is that what you translate as "sheath" should be a "pulley" or "sheave" (a "poulie" in French). "Spinning" would refer to a free-running pully.

Not sure what "eased by" is translated from, but is there a plausible alternative of "running through" or "running over" or "sliding over"?

Thanks, this helps a lot.

Original text:

...confectionné avec un brin de corde 9mm assoupli par "repoussage" de gaine et qui était relié à la corde par un machard sur mousqueton.

Tim Watts wrote: Original text: ...confectionné avec un brin de corde 9mm assoupli par "repoussage" de gaine et qui était relié à la corde par un machard sur mousqueton.

I'd translate this as

"Made up with a length of 9mm cord, made supple by compressing the sheath, and which was fastened to the (climbing) rope with a marchard sur mousqueton," i.e.



In the US, the Machard knot is usually called an autoblock. It was invented by the French Calanques climber Serge Marchard in 1961 (when he was 16 years old). See for example

youtube.com/watch?v=oJgDCkc…

The Machard sur mousqueton is often called the Bachmann knot in the US, see for example netknots.com/rope_knots/bac….

I translated "repoussage" de gaine as "compressing the sheath," meaning that after cutting the cord, the sheath was compressed along the length of the rope and the extra exposed core cut away. This left a piece in which the sheath is slightly longer than the core, which would make the cord more flexible, a requirement for the Bartlett system to work.

Sweet! Thanks for the photo too!

Interesting . . . thanks for the video too. I did not know about Machard. My friends use it as a general term to describe a Prusik knot but it never occurred to me to ask why it was called a "Machard". Merci!

rgold wrote:The Machard sur mousqueton is often called the Bachmann knot in the US, see for example netknots.com/rope_knots/bac….

Umm, are you sure of that? I'll admit I'd never heard of a Machard knot until now but from the video clip you posted it doesn't look like a Bachmann knot.

According to animatedknots.com/klemheist/ a Machard knot (without carabiner) is the same as a Klemheist, and a Machard with carabiner is the same as an autoblock.

Martin le Roux wrote: Umm, are you sure of that? I'll admit I'd never heard of a Machard knot until now but from the video clip you posted it doesn't look like a Bachmann knot. According to animatedknots.com/klemheist/ a Machard knot (without carabiner) is the same as a Klemheist, and a Machard with carabiner is the same as an autoblock.

I'm pretty sure.

The clip I posted is for the Machard knot. Although it is sometimes confused with the Kleimheist, it is not a Kleimheist.

The Marchard sur mousqueton ("Machard on a carabiner") is a different knot than the Machard, so it doesn't look like the Machard, as you have noted. I think the French have taken Machard as a generic term for a friction hitch and used appended it the carabiner wrap version, which is the Bachmann knot. The Bachmann knot was invented by Franz Bachmann at least ten years before the Machard.

rgold wrote: Original text: ...confectionné avec un brin de corde 9mm assoupli par "repoussage" de gaine et qui était relié à la corde par un machard sur mousqueton. I'd translate this as "Made up with a length of 9mm cord, made supple by compressing the sheath, and which was fastened to the (climbing) rope with a  marchard sur mousqueton," i.e. In the US, the Machard knot is usually called an autoblock. It was invented by the French Calanques climber Serge Marchard in 1961 (when he was 16 years old). See for example youtube.com/watch?v=oJgDCkc… The Machard sur mousqueton is often called the Bachmann knot in the US, see for example netknots.com/rope_knots/bac…. I translated "repoussage" de gaine as "compressing the sheath," meaning that after cutting the cord, the sheath was compressed along the length of the rope and the extra exposed core cut away. This left a piece in which the sheath is slightly longer than the core, which would make the cord more flexible, a requirement for the Bartlett system to work.

Hi everyone, if Marchard is the surname of the inventor, why his knot is named Machard? what is wrong here, is his surname or the name of the knot? Or is by purpose to make the pronouciation easier? I also saw Marchant...