I've been using a saddle on and off for a few years. In a tree stand the stand is your first layer of protection and the harness is your backup. How do you build this kind of redundancy into a saddle set up? I've been thinking about a secondary bridge and tether. Any thoughts?
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Safety and redundancy...
- Thread starter grouse
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2014
- Messages
- 3,939
This is just my opinion, but use the best ropes and biners you can, check it often for wear, and you don’t need backups. You can certainly run two bridges/tethers etc but to be truly covered for every situation that could go wrong you’d need backups for every single thing and I don’t think that’s a feasible thing. If the saddle is used correctly there should be no “fall”. The saddle isn’t for stopping a fall, but preventing one in the first place.
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d_rek
Well-Known Member
Assuming you're using one of the commercially available saddles like an Aerohunter or a Mantis there would be about a dozen things that would need to fail catastrophically before you actually fell out of the tree. That is if you're using the product(s) as intended.
There's a lot of redundancy inherently built into saddles - from the rigging hardware to the knots that are used.
But let's assume you're all setup at hunting height with one of the commercially available platform options (WE stepps, bullman steps, or predator platform, or screw in steps). We'll start from head down.
At about head height you would have your tree tether. The commercially available ones use climbing rope with high dynamic load rating and usually come with a prusik knot or blakes hitch, and a rated caribiner. They either have a spliced eye or a with a figure 8 knot to girth hitch to the tree. One the tag end there is usually a stopper knot. In the middle is your prusik or blakes hitch, with your carbiner. So 4 things would have to fail on the tree tether alone before you even get to the saddle: The figure 8 / eye splice, the prusik knot, the carbiner, or the stopper knot. That's 4 just on the tether.
Then we get to the saddle. We're clipped in on the bridge with our caribiner. That's 1. The bridge is attached to heavy duty bridge loops on either side of the saddle, either with knots or spliced eyes. 4 more connection points. Then the linemans belt can be kept in play too. Linemans belt is attached to heavy duty linemans loops via knot or splice, and uses a carbiner on one end to attach to opposite side linemans loop. On the linemans belt itself we have 6 different things that would have to fail: linemans loops x 2, linemans knots, caribiner, and rope itself. That's 5. So on the saddle itself there are potentially 10 things that would have to fail before you fell out of the tree.
I'm not going to count up the platform points, but by my count there are at least a dozen different things that need to fail before you can even start falling out of the tree. Of course chit happens and all that, but there is a LOT of redundancy built into saddle hunting already. They are very safe if used properly.
There's a lot of redundancy inherently built into saddles - from the rigging hardware to the knots that are used.
But let's assume you're all setup at hunting height with one of the commercially available platform options (WE stepps, bullman steps, or predator platform, or screw in steps). We'll start from head down.
At about head height you would have your tree tether. The commercially available ones use climbing rope with high dynamic load rating and usually come with a prusik knot or blakes hitch, and a rated caribiner. They either have a spliced eye or a with a figure 8 knot to girth hitch to the tree. One the tag end there is usually a stopper knot. In the middle is your prusik or blakes hitch, with your carbiner. So 4 things would have to fail on the tree tether alone before you even get to the saddle: The figure 8 / eye splice, the prusik knot, the carbiner, or the stopper knot. That's 4 just on the tether.
Then we get to the saddle. We're clipped in on the bridge with our caribiner. That's 1. The bridge is attached to heavy duty bridge loops on either side of the saddle, either with knots or spliced eyes. 4 more connection points. Then the linemans belt can be kept in play too. Linemans belt is attached to heavy duty linemans loops via knot or splice, and uses a carbiner on one end to attach to opposite side linemans loop. On the linemans belt itself we have 6 different things that would have to fail: linemans loops x 2, linemans knots, caribiner, and rope itself. That's 5. So on the saddle itself there are potentially 10 things that would have to fail before you fell out of the tree.
I'm not going to count up the platform points, but by my count there are at least a dozen different things that need to fail before you can even start falling out of the tree. Of course chit happens and all that, but there is a LOT of redundancy built into saddle hunting already. They are very safe if used properly.
I use a sit drag and rock harness set up. I use a Sterling PAS tied to my rock harness and clipped into the same prussik on my tether. It's an adjustible static anchor. I clip it to the tether with a different biner. The harness is the backup in this system. Since the bridge is designed to run freely through the tether biner I figure it will wear out first.
In a kestral or mantis the only way to create a redundant anchor off the lineman's belt tie in points. Your post brings up a good point about backups. Maybe a backup bridge is a good idea where a safety harness is not used. But at the same time if you always inspect the system and replace anything that has the slightest question of doubt that may be an option.
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In a kestral or mantis the only way to create a redundant anchor off the lineman's belt tie in points. Your post brings up a good point about backups. Maybe a backup bridge is a good idea where a safety harness is not used. But at the same time if you always inspect the system and replace anything that has the slightest question of doubt that may be an option.
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pesqimon
Well-Known Member
Not disagreeing that this is very safe, but all the components in the tether are single points of failure. Meaning it only takes one to fail for you to fall. Now if you keep your gear in good shape this should never happen but I thought this should be clarified.
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I was thinking this too. Once the spliced eye failed your going down regardless of the others.
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If you're concerned about using a saddle, I suppose you could back it up by also wearing a rock climbing harness with separate tether. Like any other sport which involves heights, saddlehunting does involve some inherent risks which means that it's not for everyone.
I keep going around with this, and honestly, the redundancy in the rope for a tether is the push to have the break strength in excess of 5000lbs. This is to allow for knot strength reduction, wear and tear, etc. Thinking about it from a mathematical/statistical standpoint, I think you'd probably be better off replacing your tether/prussic every season over having two tied up. If you're taking into account human error in splicing/knot tying on the tether, well, you'd have to have a whole bunch of backups throughout your entire system you're not considering. Also, the safety margin in many climbing systems is well below what a 5000lbs rated tether is. And climbing puts you at significantly more risk than hanging with a static load on your tether.
Having said all of that, having a second bridge and tether is doable. If it were me and I was going to do it, I'd tie directly to the waist belt of your saddle. You could do 1/4" amsteel tether(or even smaller that one has 7700lb rating), that would weigh nothing and take up hardly any space. spliced eye on one end, girth hitch around tree, spliced eye on other end and use a small oval screw link on the waist band. Cost you about 15.00.
Having said all of that, having a second bridge and tether is doable. If it were me and I was going to do it, I'd tie directly to the waist belt of your saddle. You could do 1/4" amsteel tether(or even smaller that one has 7700lb rating), that would weigh nothing and take up hardly any space. spliced eye on one end, girth hitch around tree, spliced eye on other end and use a small oval screw link on the waist band. Cost you about 15.00.
I think human error is the most dangerous factor and some redundancy there can be a good idea. I was climbing down to untangle my bow rope in the dark, in the rain on one of those real cluster$%!# setups and wanted to use my tether until I could clear a branch and hook my linemans branch for the rest of the descent. I didn’t realize my stopper knot had undone itself and I backed the ropeman right off my tether. There I was 15 feet high and not hooked up. That could have been bad if I had tried to weight my tether at that time. I was able to get hooked in with my lineman’s belt, but that’s just an example where human error could have gotten me in big trouble. Another one I think is hooking carabiners incorrectly. I always double check those just to make sure they are hooked up correctly.
That said, once set up I think redundancy is a little overboard. As others have said, if you use saddles as intended, fall factor is always zero because you always have tension on the tether. In that case, you have some more margin for error. I don’t think you need to be overly redundant. I still think it is important to inspect your gear and also exercise caution, especially with razor-tipped arrows and the like. Doing a risk assessment that could go wrong, but I don't think any of the components are likely to spontaneously fail.
Like I said, I think everyone needs to take a risk based approach. It's something that comes into play for me because I am not a saddle purist. I also use my saddle with my XOP Air Raid as a hybrid setup. So I have introduced dynamic forces and fall factor into my system because I am standing on the platform with slack on my tether and using the saddle as a safety harness. That's a whole other ballgame from keeping tension on the tether. That means I need to be more studied on my system and aware of the impact forces on the materials that are life-supporting. To that end I’ve made some modifications to my gear and made choices to ensure the weakest link in my system is hitting safety standards comparable to treestand safety harnesses.
That said, once set up I think redundancy is a little overboard. As others have said, if you use saddles as intended, fall factor is always zero because you always have tension on the tether. In that case, you have some more margin for error. I don’t think you need to be overly redundant. I still think it is important to inspect your gear and also exercise caution, especially with razor-tipped arrows and the like. Doing a risk assessment that could go wrong, but I don't think any of the components are likely to spontaneously fail.
Like I said, I think everyone needs to take a risk based approach. It's something that comes into play for me because I am not a saddle purist. I also use my saddle with my XOP Air Raid as a hybrid setup. So I have introduced dynamic forces and fall factor into my system because I am standing on the platform with slack on my tether and using the saddle as a safety harness. That's a whole other ballgame from keeping tension on the tether. That means I need to be more studied on my system and aware of the impact forces on the materials that are life-supporting. To that end I’ve made some modifications to my gear and made choices to ensure the weakest link in my system is hitting safety standards comparable to treestand safety harnesses.