Harness broke during fall

Nkane 1 wrote:

UL C4s have a ten year lifespan. It's in the product warnings: blackdiamond-cms.zaneray.co…

There's a statement that the BD Vision harness also has a 10-year lifespan from the manufacture date: blackdiamond-cms.zaneray.co…

10 year life span unused and stored in a climate controlled environment.

Avram Neal wrote:

Perhaps I'm being irrational, but this thread has convinced me to never use an ultralight harness.

Nylon has some of the best strength retention across flex cycles. I know Kevlar is one of the worst since the fibers will actually cut other fibers when bending. I suspect vectran suffers a similar fate to other ultra static fibers. 

I'll be sticking with nylon for as much as I reasonably can and dyneema where nylon doesn't make sense. 

https://user.xmission.com/~tmoyer/testing/High_Strength_Cord.pdf

OP here: I have submitted a claim with BD - curious to see what they find out. Just to be clear, the harness was definitely well used with some abrasions, especially around the tie-in points. But nothing on the waist loop itself that would have even made me think about a possible failure there. I’d also assume the black webbing keeps the inner load-bearing structure protected from UV degradation while climbing. Here are a few more pictures. Note what looks like a clean diagonal cut of the white fabric is actually by design - the fabric simply ends there. I believe only the white cross-patterned fabric is load-bearing. You can also see where the stitching of the gear loop that held it together started failing. The rope didn’t suffer any damage and the catch didn’t even feel particularly hard. Just some smaller grooves on the black totem that caught the fall (horizontal placement).

Definitely scary but that harness material looks faded, brittle and old asf. I used an old harness once that had a similar fade and I knew better, took a fall and shocker! the stitching ripped! Lesson learned, buy new shit especially where it counts. Pretty sure BD is going to tell you not to be a cheap ass. We should all remember Todd Skinner and the hard lesson of his unnecessary death.

Glad you're alive!

David Menken wrote:

Here are a few more pictures. Note what looks like a clean diagonal cut of the white fabric is actually by design - the fabric simply ends there. I believe only the white cross-patterned fabric is load-bearing. 

The white backing fabric ending their makes sense but it also looks like the vectran/dyneema strands are also cut there. You can see better than us though. 

It's possible that the stiffener at that point means you bend the material repeatedly across that edge? (I'm guessing) it certainly shouldn't fail because of that though. 

250 days of 40 ft falls?  I’m going to go with not doing that on an ultralight harness. 

Avram Neal wrote:

Perhaps I'm being irrational, but this thread has convinced me to never use an ultralight harness.

Candidly, I never understood the urge to go “ultralight” on harnesses. Perhaps it’s just my body, but I don’t find beefier harnesses to be that much different comfort or weight wise just wearing. And beefier harnesses are WAY more comfortable to fall, hang, carry or support weight with…the main difference to my mind is the likelihood of exactly what this thread is about.

David Menken wrote:

OP here:…..The rope didn’t suffer any damage and the catch didn’t even feel particularly hard.…..

To clarify, my question was not so much about the rope being damaged from THIS fall, but rather was it played out and stiffer. —at the end of its life as well— causing a higher load than usual.   Do you know what the “effective” FF estimate was on your whip?

That would be a higher risk combo. Worn rope and worn harness, and high FF if so.  

  It’ll be interesting to see BD’s analysis.   Like Tim P said above, seems plausible that the flexing/bending over time when packing /storing the harness at that fabric junction — is that where the harness “naturally” folded on itself when stuffing in a pack for example?— perhaps helped weaken the load bearing fibers over time.  

Going out on a limb and guessing —this is MP after all and the home of semi-informed opinions —  that not all harnesses have that fabric splice you have in your waistbelt (I’d be surprised if they do). I’d think that waist belt laminate is made in longer rolls and when it got cut to size, your harness got a chunk with a splice in it.  

Combination of folding the harness over and over and sweat?

A lightweight harness or not, this should never happen, even with an ultra-lightweight harness many years past its expiration date. Someone mentioned this up thread, and I suspect and concur that this was a simple (and very serious) manufacturing defect involving a splice from separate spools of material. 

Jabroni McChufferson wrote:

Combination of folding the harness diver and over and sweat?

What?

David Menken wrote:

Just a hint (for all, not just the OP): when taking photos like this for this kind of situation, photograph with a neutral, non-busy background.

Marc801 C wrote:

Just a hint (for all, not just the OP): when taking photos like this for this kind of situation, photograph with a neutral, non-busy background.

I'm guessing that this was an 'immediate reaction' photo taken immediately after the incident happened.

Marc801 C wrote:

Just a hint (for all, not just the OP): when taking photos like this for this kind of situation, photograph with a neutral, non-busy background.

Yeah, please make sure to set up the photo lights, hard contrasting background of dissimilar colors to the harness, use proper framing following the rule of 1/3's and make sure shutter speeds, exposure and lens length are optimized. 

Your close call with falling out of a failed harness is unacceptable to Marc's photography sensitivities and no reason to be sloppy.   

NateC wrote:

Yeah, please make sure to set up the photo lights, hard contrasting background of dissimilar colors to the harness, use proper framing following the rule of 1/3's and make sure shutter speeds, exposure and lens length are optimized. 

Your close call with falling out of a failed harness is unacceptable to Marc's photography sensitivities and no reason to be sloppy.   

Geeze, it was just a suggestion. It's like clarity in writing.

Marc801 C wrote:

Geeze, it was just a suggestion. It's like clarity in writing.

More like nitpicking over the font choice.

Marc801 C wrote:

Geeze, it was just a suggestion. It's like clarity in writing.

Geez*

Marc801 C wrote:

Geeze, it was just a suggestion. It's like clarity in writing.

ur in da rong place 4 clear writing bruther

Frank Stein wrote:

....a splice from separate spools of material. 

That was my first thought.  That triangle stitch pattern and the linear separation would not exist otherwise.

Marc801 C wrote:

What?

Over and over