Plug the shit out off the stuff mate . Some people don't relise it costs money to do the science of breaking gear fear. And the content is actually useful for real world applications . As a 40 year-old that started climbing only 4 years ago your channel has helped lot in understanding the limitations of my gear . And has helped me push for more adventures in my homeland of Scotland .. so keep up the great work the whole how not 2 team 👏
I genuinely was terrified of dyneema due to that old drop test video until I found Ryan's videos and he put things in context. The work he does is a fantastic resource.
This channel is becoming more and more like Mythbusters but for outdoor sports. Crazy to see how quickly this show has increased it's production value! high quality content from Mr. Jinks.
I experienced one instance where I was relatively convinced that my rope would have performed differently if it had been dry. During a slightly swinging top rope fall, the sheath ripped open with surprising ease as it made contact with the rock. If a rope's strength against sharp edges is significantly compromised when wet, this could be a realistic safety issue.
Yup, that would ve my guess. The actual strength of the rope is the same, but the durability decreases, thats why this test with new rope showed no difference, but the tests with multiple hard falls did show a difference.
I’m a little late to the comment section on this one. I wanted to point out a few flaws in your testing. -It wasn’t wet enough you clearly should have soaked the rope in pure glacier water directly from the source. - There wasn’t enough sun to be considered a partly sunny day. - The moon phase was off - And finally it’s obvious by color coordinating the rope and pants you were playing favorites. Hehehe Thanks for putting in the effort great video.
As a beginner climber when I hear the rope creaking I get scared. It's cool to see the figure 8 knot does not slip. You really are breaking gear fear for me. Kudos
my honest guess as to where the "wet ropes are weaker" thing comes from is from sailing. certain types of rope, when stored wet for periods of time, can mold and this decreases their strength. i don't think this is a problem with synthetic rope, but may be a thing to test.
It is a common thought - riggers and 4x4ers cop it too, Nylon is nearly always "regarded" as being weaker when wet - run it through a descender under load and it won't be too wet any longer...
Since 1964 I've never seen my wet cave rope break. I did have issues with wet rope that froze and that defeated my use of Gibbs and Prusik knots. So, I climbed up a flowing melt-water chute on-belay.
I don't mind the plugs at all. It's refreshing to see some "wholesome" advertising. Please never sell out to one of those mobile game companies. Love the videos, keep up the great work!
I really really don't want to go to the skillshare or squarespace ad model. Those really make me lose respect for channels i watched since the beginning. I like to add value to the community as much as possible if i'm going to have to plug stuff to make this sustainable.
would be interesting to see the strength of ropes that are used in wet conditions regularly. Like if a rope has been soaked in water, then laid out in the sun for the day. And repeat this for a couple of weeks or something
Super good enough is an under statement! Dont get me wrong, safety is always priority number 1! Double/triple check your systems and gear every time. Using gear rated at these ratios is means for having good fun with good friends. That's what its all about! Thank you Ryan and Bobby!!! You boys are the shiz!!!
This channel is awesome. You guys have really helped show me how to properly use my gear and have helped eliminate a lot of my gear fear. Only thing I question anymore is the quality of the anchor in the rock on sport routes. One thing I would be curious to see is some drip testing of the Edelrid ohm device. I’m curious how much force it reduces for the belayer. My fiancé and I have about 70lbs difference between us so when I fall she tends to catch some air. lol. I recently purchased an ohm device and am waiting for it to come in so we can get out and test it.
I could've saved you a bunch of time Ryan. We developed a crag which dries super fast, which meant that we often get caught half way up a route by rain, run away and hide in a cave for a bit, then go straight back to climbing on, yes, wet ropes. We are all still alive. Truth is if you ever generate enough force to be close to the ropes max you will probably break your back. Most falls dont come even vaguely close to those kind of forces
You're the man! I appreciate everything you and Bobby do. BTW, I live and guide climbing in Truckee, and I have seen Bobby around multiple times now. Haven't said hello yet, but I'm sure I will. It seems like we do some of the same kind of work with youth.
Ryan, I would really like to see you test Whoopie and Loopie slings. (Arborist industry) Would be nice to know if they are as strong as I've been told. Like the eye splice video maybe you could find someone to demonstrate the right way to make them; then test them.
I'm no climber so ignore me, but.... 1) How does the "wet" affect friction? I believe friction is a factor in various applications. Rappelling, and friction knots. ie- When will a Prussik slip? 2) The video is useful in the real world. The end user should be alerted to possible variations in performance. The manufacturers give warning to introduce "wetness" for any injury when using their product.
FYI, you can certainly calculate whether there is a statistically significant difference from those sample sizes (referencing the wet vs dry ggplot boxplots). A simple t-test will do here. And there is definitely a difference (easily seen in the BWP). This is likely a big part of why these warnings are present. I agree with all of your downstream comments, but maybe consult a statistician to help you with concise interp/experimental design?
Statistics doesn't have a concept of "definite." If you did dress up what is essentially backyard science with "statistical significance," then people could gain unfounded confidence in the result because they don't understand the trappings of the methods used.
@@johnsmith34 statistics as a field most certainly has a concept of definite answers ("critical regions" come to mind first). It's actually the point of statistical tests to make definite statements from data.
@@feluver The problem with getting statistics involved is that this Ryan's tests aren't designed to cover all possible scenarios and therefore the statistical significance isn't generalizable. You can certainly say "In Ryan's drop tower, using Decker, this specific rope, tied with this specific knot dropped from this specific height, we saw a statistically significant difference." But anything more than that is no longer covered by the data. Ryan's tests are mostly useful to know if something is "way off". Not if something is slightly different.
@@thepengwn77 those are called "limitations". They're not problems. They're an omnipresent part of research. Part of presenting research is clearly presenting its limitations, as Ryan is careful to do. This really has nothing to do with statistics. Your argument could easily be made about qualitative reasoning as well.
I don't need a money clip, I have a beard trimmer, I don't play video games, being a Scottish lord sounds un-American and I think all the headphones in ads are terrible. Rockie Talkies however.... that's something I might actually buy - thank you for not working a manscaped ad into your puns and showing me something that might actually help me :)
I've always wondered how fast someone would fall if they're rappelling with an ATC and just completely let go of the rope. It must slow them down a bit, especially rappelling on 2 strands of rope, and I wonder if some twisting or swinging of the rope from the fall would make you speed up or slow down.
Sadly, because gravity, you have the most significant friction at the very top of a very tall rope. It does a bit for sure, but the qualitative result of hitting the deck from a given height is more or less the same as with no rope. Always have a 3rd hand or a fireman's belay, seizures happen.
I just realized I don't actually know whether those are real terms or just what utah canyoneers call them. For clarity, '3rd hand' is a klemheist knot on your brake line clipped to your leg loop, and 'fireman's belay' is an attentive buddy at the bottom with his hands high on your brake line ready to stop you.
When canyoning I frequently let go of the last portion of an rappel to drop into a pool of water. And I can tell you the speed lost is almost that of a freefall
@@torydavis10 I've never done any canyoneering and have heard climbers call it a third hand. Obviously best practice is to have some element of redundancy. That makes sense though that the more rope under you the more friction there would be on the device, so you have no friction when you need it most
Love these videos. Was nervous in my early days of rappelling near a waterfall (not climbing) in fear that the rope would break because of a damp/wet rope. or that the grigri would slip easier.
Here's an engineers educated guess. One of the important factors in rope stretch is internal friction. Specifically, the friction between the individual rope strands. Wetting the rope reduces the friction between the strands and allows the rope to stretch more given the same force. The longer it stretches the faster it will get to its breaking point (past it's elastic deformation, into plastic deformation, and finally to breakage). Hence a weaker rope.
In braided rawhide, the fibers need to be lubed to be strong. Round braids move as they tighten to clamp to the core. Rope makers have a treatment of the rope to self lube the fibers. In this case water and ice will lube the fibers. The idea is to reduce the friction factor on the fibers in ropes. For the drop tests, what was the outside temperature and humidity during the tests?
I know this is way past timely for this video, but coming at this from a complete non-climber's perspective, I do a fair bit of fishing and most of our lines are nylon (either single strand/monofilament or braided) and those lines will begin to wear out after about 2 years of regular use (i.e. you want to replace the bulk of your spool after that amount of time) because the nylon will absorb water and dirt and will begin to degrade (you can sometimes see this with colored lines rubbing off micro-plastic dust just from light finger friction while reeling in an unloaded line). Such lines are more susceptible to snapping under sudden load and to abrasion (which seems broadly comparable to what might break a rope in a worst case scenario). Given that, my concern would be that a rope getting wet and drying regularly over a longer period of time might indeed weaken a rope more than one that was being stored inside a reasonably conditioned building, but I don't think that would be any more apparent in the kind of worst case scenario that such a warning entails. Seems like as long as you're replacing gear at regular, common sense intervals, the effects of water on nylon should be negligible. But maybe there's some material scientists that think otherwise.
I might have missed it. Were all the ropes brand new? Seemed like the difference between the first drop test and the second was pretty consistently higher forces in the second. That might just be due to the rope losing some elasticity from the first fall. Did knots seem like they got tighter with the wet ropes? I wonder if with less friction they can get tighter and pinch/bend the rope more.
I think a rope getting wet is NOT really a problem. The point is really Nylon that has absorbed moisture over time will behave differently. That is moisture with age and not being stored properly in a dry place. Washing ropes after each use is actually a very good thing just make sure it's dried properly before storing.
I’d like to see the wet rope test done using various devices to see what the effects are, not necessarily on rope strength but on the effectiveness or lack thereof of each device on a wet rope. Like using a prusik, Grigri, ascender, Micro traction, etc.
It may just be my misunderstanding, but it's possible you may not necessarily be comparing apples to apples. A couple of tests that would have been interesting would be to test the elongation after the drop tower for all three ropes in testing, as well as subsequent water retention / weight. The big unknown question remains: if your rope got significantly saturated and took a fall when should you retire it
Comementing for the algorithm, and this is super interesting. Just like most climbing gear, if you're using it in a realistic manner it's super good enough and you'll likely hurt yourself before breaking the gear!
I've always been told that wet ropes aren't necessarily weaker, but if you weight them while they are wet, then then the rope gets significantly more worn then if you let them dry first. I have a rope where it started raining while we were climbing and by the time we were all off the wall we were lowering off of a totally soaked rope, luckily we really only needed to use one side of it. I still have the rope and checking it it's still in good condition and I've been using it regularly for many more months, but the half we used while wet is now super soft and feels close to core shot while the side that did not get weighted is still fairly stiff. I can't think of anything else that I may have done with the rope to leave it as unevenly worn as it is.
You know in real life scenario's the only way your rope will be fully soaked is of you drop it in a lake, water fall, or the rain was extremely heavy. So the leaving the rope in water over night would only truly happen when and if you left it out went to sleep and it was out in the rain.. But in textile, water sometimes makes it stronger. And to be honest there are many people that use these ropes when climbing or repelling off water falls or into lakes.. They never seemed to ever have issues
Too many numbers on a screen makes it more difficult to retain the information. The % is all that matters and my tape measure had inches and my luggage scale had lbs so that is why we used them.
@@HowNOT2 - great response - thanks for the content. one could just standardise on coke cans (weights and measures) (then one could argue between; 300, 330, 355, and 375ml versions) (most of the old English empire sort of get by with all types of scales and measures depending on the situation or industry)
I'm curious if having the wet ropes coiled before testing helped with their performance. They weren't pre-streched from use and had some stretch available to soften the falls. I wonder if the danger of a wet rope is the slow stretch recovery that would lead to increasingly harder catches over time? Maybe sling a wet rope over the drop tower with some small weight on the ends for a period of time to simulate some pre-stretch scenario before drop testing. Thanks for all your hard work. Love your channel. Ignore the haters.
So that is why we did 2 of each drop test and since we weren't getting huge changes in the results I'm not sure recovery is that different but i don't know
@@largeformatlandscape - - the "rain" that came out of the "wet rope" means that the second test is essentially with a dry rope. so "sucking in air" may not be a problem. Fibre Fusion from friction at the limit is likely a greater reason why elasticity "may" vary over time, or between falls. NB. If we are using ropes anywhere near their MBS for human safety activities there is something really wrong with the rigging (Factor of safety is for a reason - fatigue and miscalculation). take care, enjoy.
@@kadmow Even if a lot of water comes out, water will fill all of the interstitial spaces and hence when the rope tries to relax, the channels which would have allowed air back into the rope are filled with water. This seems to make little differences as the second test wasn't much different
It may take only 1 hour to get the water into the rope, so all air bubbles are removed. But it takes several days or weeks to get the water to absorb into the nylon it self! If a rope has been outside in wet weather, or in a puddle, for a long time it may be much weaker than in these tests. Look up polyamide (or nylon) water absorption curves to see for your self.
So... in 3D printing, we use dehydration ovens to pull the water out of our filaments so they print properly. Assuming nylon continues drawing water in through its life, could dehydrating an old rope cause higher yield figures, essentially restoring a rope? Edit: also, I learned that dry treatments don't do all that much for the rope weight/water absorption. Thanks!
Maybe they're more worried about damage from being put away wet? Could you leave a rope wet in the gaeage for a few months? I'm wondering if uv damage from the sun has more an effect? Maybe try one after being baked in a tanning bed? How much does being used in the elements effect rope degradation?
If you're seeing visible molding, just run it through the washing machine. You can leave wet ropes in caves for a decade without noteable issues.... It's actually funny to see how many folks are oblivious to the other roped sports out there lololol
You guys should do one more wet rope case. Freeze the waterlogged rope... Recently had ropes freeze up while ice climbing to the point that they almost were too stiff to rap.
Hey Ryan I'm sure there's a comment in here somewhere covering this topic but... I think the only thing can really be a concern with wet ropes is that wet ropes do not retract as quickly after being stretched. So I would imagine that repeated falls could produce harder and harder catches.
If you really want to get nerdy… you can plot the data as a stress strain graph to get the Young’s modulus to calculate the stiffness and derive the peak force the rope can withstand and compare that to your drop test. You would need to take more data points on the tension puller, but idk of the juice is worth the squeeze
I would like to see that too please. I was taught not to leave it too long (about the length of the knot itself), or it might get stuck in a belay device, or get caught in a rock crack, or just generally cause some sort of unwanted interference with whatever. But my friends who have started to climb more recently have learned to leave it about two knots long.
Hurray for the box plots! 16:39 💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰 They do show an 11 & 15% weaker break force for wet ropes on the averages. Although more data is would be more solid. This also shows why a safety ratio is important, because you can loose a bunch of strength to different factors.
I'm no statistician, but how TF does he get upper and lower quartiles when there's only 3 samples of each?! it's completely meaningless for that small a sample size.
Can you please drop test badly/loosely knotted figure eight and bowline knots. How bad/loose/ugly do they have to be to not be super good enough anymore.
In the uiaa tests, all the breakage occurs over a rounded metal edge, which is supposed to represent the last piece of protection. Can you add a similar edge in your system? The metal edge is essentially supposed to be a 1 cm steel biner.
Once again adding to the reality. Sure, you can break anything if you try hard enough, but as you mentioned, maybe avoid 1.8 factor falls more than getting a rope damp.
Excellent video, showing once again that rope breaks at the knot! Have you ever considered attempting to break rope without knots? I think it would be fun to see the difference the knot makes. It would also be cool to use a no-knot setup if you get around to doing the cryo test or for any other sort of environmental torture test so that you have a reasonable chance of getting rope to break right at the spot you abused (assuming said abuse actually matters). I realize most folks will only rarely or never be using a no-knot but for the purposes of dispelling gear fear, it could be good to see that spilling this or that on your rope either will or won't make it break in that spot even if you take the knot out of the system.
@@FlatOutFE A no-knot is a standard and super simple anchor used when you need to pull stupid hard with lots of pulleys. If you wrap the rope several times around a cylinder of much larger diameter than your rope (in the field, this is generally a tree), friction holds it. In order to keep the whole thing together and preload the tail you still throw an 8 on the end and clip it back to the load line, but if you did it right the knot will see at most a few pounds of tension and won't really be part of the system.
a lot of plastic like nylon can absorb moisture from their environment over an extended period of time often this causes it to become more brittle or affect wear cycling it would be interesting to look at the difference at longer exposure to see what that affect water absorbed into the material itself has compared to water that has been sucked into the inter fiber spaces like a sponge
What if your rope already had knots that had been loaded and then got wet does the rope swell effect the already tight knots strength. love the gear break series keep up the awesome work
I'd be willing to bet it makes no difference. Even the swelling from freezing the rope is nothing compared to how deformed the knots get when pulling so hard. I could be wrong though.
Hey Ryan, been looking for the code for the rocky talkies, and I know a few other guys have too, but I think they got lost in the comments. Is it still up?
It never made sense to me that H2O would dangerously weaken a rope. But a question is whether moulds would produce enzymes that would eat at petroleum based fibers in a way that was significant. Hard to test, but coming from Indonesia, the fear was that humidity and water could conspire to weaken ropes. Any way to test ropes left wet in a bag in a humid state for, say a month?
Cavers have done some tests with this because we will leave permanently rigged ropes in caves for upwards of a decade (...and caves are wet). There has yet to be any significant findings. Derek Bristol has some pull tests of some ropes that were rigged for 10+ yrs in caves, several with visible quantities of mold on them. You can find the video on his UA-cam channel (search "Derek Bristol" and it's on one of his vertical playlists). Now, copious amounts of bird shit on your ropes? Yeah that could be a problem. A graduate student in Dr. Hazel Barton's lab at University of Akron is working on studying that. TLDR: you're fine-- trust me, caving is 100x's more abusive
@@rachelhasbruises Yeah, I did see some of the tests they did on extremely old ropes in caves. I guess I'm most interested in something in between--what's most common for climbers being stuff like leaving a damp rope in a bag for a couple of weeks by mistake, for instance. Does that mean the rope should be thrown away (as many climbers will advise). There was some test that one of the rope companies did in the late 80s that was talked about a lot back then--where a rope that was rated for 8 falls was kept in a drawer in good conditions (no UV or humidity) for 10 years and supposedly it broke on the first fall. So the idea was that nylon deteriorates with time regardless of conditions. But It always seemed to me that ropes made of petroleum based products were probably not succeptable to fungus-caused deterioration as the fungus would probably just feed on the moisture and organic material perhaps embedded in the rope but not eat into the plastic/nylon itself...
@@ariefnagara I think you're really missing the big picture. ...you don't think that ropes being stored in caves for decades isn't a 1000x more extreme version of your damp bag idea? Caves are wet. What is wet literally never dries because the ambient humidity underground is extremely high (like... 90% or something). Aboveground, your rope will dry out long before any microbes make significant colonization that would impact strength even in the slightest...
Some caving / canyoning ropes are made of polyester because it is impervious to the same water effects as nylon is weakened by. I believe many harnesses are too.
The reason for this is not strength, but for elongation and carry weight. LEP, low-elongation polyester, is incredibly unstretchy and does not become any more stretchy when wet. And, since it doesn't really take up water in the hydrogen-bonding way like nylon, your soaking wet rope actually weighs a fair bit less after it drips out for a minute. I believe my imlay rope is rated at 0.5% stretch at 300 lbs, super duper static. This is desirable to avoid rope wear on angry surfaces and unneccesary bounce-and-wiggle on the sorts of no-fall 'anchors' canyoneers wind up using. Climbers don't use this sort of rope because it would make gravel out of your pelvis. We also like more sheath than core, again because we're more concerned with abrasion resistance than shock loading.
As a one of the mob, plz and thanku for going the extra mile and pre-empting our nitpicks! We appreciate it 100%, this channel is the most super good enough! Luvyaloads!
Check out our new store! hownot2.store/
Plug the shit out off the stuff mate . Some people don't relise it costs money to do the science of breaking gear fear. And the content is actually useful for real world applications . As a 40 year-old that started climbing only 4 years ago your channel has helped lot in understanding the limitations of my gear . And has helped me push for more adventures in my homeland of Scotland .. so keep up the great work the whole how not 2 team 👏
I genuinely was terrified of dyneema due to that old drop test video until I found Ryan's videos and he put things in context. The work he does is a fantastic resource.
@@tomedinburgh4490 Thanks. We have some really really good dyneema videos in the bank.
What does "plug the .... out off the stuff mate" mean?
@@elmeradams8781 plug = advertise, canvas, sell
Climbing in Scotland - this episode was made specifically for you :-)
The value of the knowledge you’re sharing is going up exponentially with each video.
couldn't have said it better. the only channel i subscribe to now
This channel is becoming more and more like Mythbusters but for outdoor sports. Crazy to see how quickly this show has increased it's production value! high quality content from Mr. Jinks.
I've only been told to watch Mythbusters.
Catch-up with me in a cave to say so.
I experienced one instance where I was relatively convinced that my rope would have performed differently if it had been dry. During a slightly swinging top rope fall, the sheath ripped open with surprising ease as it made contact with the rock. If a rope's strength against sharp edges is significantly compromised when wet, this could be a realistic safety issue.
It could have been wearing if the anchor was set up with the rope rubbing the rock, how many times was it climbed prior on the same setup?
Yup, that would ve my guess.
The actual strength of the rope is the same, but the durability decreases, thats why this test with new rope showed no difference, but the tests with multiple hard falls did show a difference.
I’m a little late to the comment section on this one. I wanted to point out a few flaws in your testing.
-It wasn’t wet enough you clearly should have soaked the rope in pure glacier water directly from the source.
- There wasn’t enough sun to be considered a partly sunny day.
- The moon phase was off
- And finally it’s obvious by color coordinating the rope and pants you were playing favorites.
Hehehe
Thanks for putting in the effort great video.
Let's take a moment to recognize Ryan is breaking a sterling dry rope for us. He had to sacrifice many dollars to the climbing gods.
Great stuff!
I hate climbing in the rain. But an arborist doesn't get to pick the weather 🤷🏻♂️
Meanwhile, in caves:
"dry.... ropes...?"
As a beginner climber when I hear the rope creaking I get scared. It's cool to see the figure 8 knot does not slip. You really are breaking gear fear for me. Kudos
Ropes creaking is totally normal. Ironically, they actually *stop* creaking when they're wet
The quality of your videos is geting better and better :)
my honest guess as to where the "wet ropes are weaker" thing comes from is from sailing. certain types of rope, when stored wet for periods of time, can mold and this decreases their strength. i don't think this is a problem with synthetic rope, but may be a thing to test.
It is a common thought - riggers and 4x4ers cop it too, Nylon is nearly always "regarded" as being weaker when wet -
run it through a descender under load and it won't be too wet any longer...
This isn't true, it comes from the fact that nylon gets weaker, when it's wet, that simple. Ryan's tests even show this.
It originally comes from natural fibre ropes that really are significantly weaker when wet.
Since 1964 I've never seen my wet cave rope break.
I did have issues with wet rope that froze and that
defeated my use of Gibbs and Prusik knots. So, I
climbed up a flowing melt-water chute on-belay.
River guide and swift water rescue professional; love super good enough! This channel is super good enough to subscribe to.
keep those ropes dry ;)
If you say comments are good for you, it is a supergood enough reason to say that I love your channel.
Loving the content... not bothered by the ads, very happy if they're working for you.
I don't mind the plugs at all. It's refreshing to see some "wholesome" advertising. Please never sell out to one of those mobile game companies. Love the videos, keep up the great work!
I really really don't want to go to the skillshare or squarespace ad model. Those really make me lose respect for channels i watched since the beginning. I like to add value to the community as much as possible if i'm going to have to plug stuff to make this sustainable.
would be interesting to see the strength of ropes that are used in wet conditions regularly. Like if a rope has been soaked in water, then laid out in the sun for the day. And repeat this for a couple of weeks or something
research (like how generic i'm being haha) says once it dries out it returns to normal except for whatever micro damage was done to it wet
The sun probably does more damage than the water in that scenario.
If this were a problem, cavers would be dead. 🤣
I’ve been waiting for this video for awhile. Thank you!
I think that was a really excellent test, exactly the sort of thing your drop tower is for. Thanks.
Super good enough is an under statement! Dont get me wrong, safety is always priority number 1! Double/triple check your systems and gear every time. Using gear rated at these ratios is means for having good fun with good friends. That's what its all about! Thank you Ryan and Bobby!!! You boys are the shiz!!!
stop worrying so much about random comments under your videos. your work is amazing. such good knowledge as a climber!!
This channel is awesome. You guys have really helped show me how to properly use my gear and have helped eliminate a lot of my gear fear. Only thing I question anymore is the quality of the anchor in the rock on sport routes. One thing I would be curious to see is some drip testing of the Edelrid ohm device. I’m curious how much force it reduces for the belayer. My fiancé and I have about 70lbs difference between us so when I fall she tends to catch some air. lol. I recently purchased an ohm device and am waiting for it to come in so we can get out and test it.
lol I love that uh huh smile nod. I had to rewind and watch that a few times I was laughing so hard. Great video man!
I could've saved you a bunch of time Ryan. We developed a crag which dries super fast, which meant that we often get caught half way up a route by rain, run away and hide in a cave for a bit, then go straight back to climbing on, yes, wet ropes. We are all still alive. Truth is if you ever generate enough force to be close to the ropes max you will probably break your back. Most falls dont come even vaguely close to those kind of forces
It's cool how the dry rope got wet slower
"The water is cold"
Brilliant! :))))
Such great content! Thank you for all your valuable contributions to the community!
You're the man! I appreciate everything you and Bobby do. BTW, I live and guide climbing in Truckee, and I have seen Bobby around multiple times now. Haven't said hello yet, but I'm sure I will. It seems like we do some of the same kind of work with youth.
Say hello next time, can't say i won't be awkward but i am usually friendly. -Bobby
“Is that our tail doing just fine over here.” Excellent line!
Ryan, I would really like to see you test Whoopie and Loopie slings. (Arborist industry) Would be nice to know if they are as strong as I've been told. Like the eye splice video maybe you could find someone to demonstrate the right way to make them; then test them.
I'm no climber so ignore me, but....
1) How does the "wet" affect friction? I believe friction is a factor in various applications. Rappelling, and friction knots. ie- When will a Prussik slip?
2) The video is useful in the real world. The end user should be alerted to possible variations in performance. The manufacturers give warning to introduce "wetness" for any injury when using their product.
So stoked to see the drop tower put up to this. Huge payoff for us, your viewers, from all of your hard work!! Stoked to see this put to the test.
You guys and gals are doing a great job.
FYI, you can certainly calculate whether there is a statistically significant difference from those sample sizes (referencing the wet vs dry ggplot boxplots). A simple t-test will do here. And there is definitely a difference (easily seen in the BWP). This is likely a big part of why these warnings are present. I agree with all of your downstream comments, but maybe consult a statistician to help you with concise interp/experimental design?
Statistics doesn't have a concept of "definite." If you did dress up what is essentially backyard science with "statistical significance," then people could gain unfounded confidence in the result because they don't understand the trappings of the methods used.
@@johnsmith34 statistics as a field most certainly has a concept of definite answers ("critical regions" come to mind first). It's actually the point of statistical tests to make definite statements from data.
@@johnsmith34 also, there is no rule saying that science can't take place in a backyard last I checked.
@@feluver The problem with getting statistics involved is that this Ryan's tests aren't designed to cover all possible scenarios and therefore the statistical significance isn't generalizable.
You can certainly say "In Ryan's drop tower, using Decker, this specific rope, tied with this specific knot dropped from this specific height, we saw a statistically significant difference." But anything more than that is no longer covered by the data.
Ryan's tests are mostly useful to know if something is "way off". Not if something is slightly different.
@@thepengwn77 those are called "limitations". They're not problems. They're an omnipresent part of research. Part of presenting research is clearly presenting its limitations, as Ryan is careful to do. This really has nothing to do with statistics. Your argument could easily be made about qualitative reasoning as well.
Great video, always happy to know that my gear is super good enough!
I don't need a money clip, I have a beard trimmer, I don't play video games, being a Scottish lord sounds un-American and I think all the headphones in ads are terrible. Rockie Talkies however.... that's something I might actually buy - thank you for not working a manscaped ad into your puns and showing me something that might actually help me :)
Great video. Leaving a comment and a thumbs up.
I really enjoyed the charts and the fact that you tested the ropes on the drop tower and slacksnap.
I've always wondered how fast someone would fall if they're rappelling with an ATC and just completely let go of the rope. It must slow them down a bit, especially rappelling on 2 strands of rope, and I wonder if some twisting or swinging of the rope from the fall would make you speed up or slow down.
I've been canyoneering a lot. Would love to see this test, but I can say with some certainty, it won't slow you enough to help.
Sadly, because gravity, you have the most significant friction at the very top of a very tall rope. It does a bit for sure, but the qualitative result of hitting the deck from a given height is more or less the same as with no rope. Always have a 3rd hand or a fireman's belay, seizures happen.
I just realized I don't actually know whether those are real terms or just what utah canyoneers call them. For clarity, '3rd hand' is a klemheist knot on your brake line clipped to your leg loop, and 'fireman's belay' is an attentive buddy at the bottom with his hands high on your brake line ready to stop you.
When canyoning I frequently let go of the last portion of an rappel to drop into a pool of water. And I can tell you the speed lost is almost that of a freefall
@@torydavis10 I've never done any canyoneering and have heard climbers call it a third hand. Obviously best practice is to have some element of redundancy. That makes sense though that the more rope under you the more friction there would be on the device, so you have no friction when you need it most
Love these videos. Was nervous in my early days of rappelling near a waterfall (not climbing) in fear that the rope would break because of a damp/wet rope. or that the grigri would slip easier.
My guy in the grey is wearing the best layer ever, the Outdoor Research Ascendant Hoody!! Such a shame they discontinued it...
I'm not a climber but you are doing the lords work for climbers everywhere
I don’t even climb and I love this channel lol
I heard wet ropes are fine on the 1st fall but then fail to recover their dynamic properties (so a 2nd fall is harder)
Here's an engineers educated guess. One of the important factors in rope stretch is internal friction. Specifically, the friction between the individual rope strands. Wetting the rope reduces the friction between the strands and allows the rope to stretch more given the same force. The longer it stretches the faster it will get to its breaking point (past it's elastic deformation, into plastic deformation, and finally to breakage). Hence a weaker rope.
It’s good to see you that you are using the metric kn
Metric for the win😊
In braided rawhide, the fibers need to be lubed to be strong. Round braids move as they tighten to clamp to the core. Rope makers have a treatment of the rope to self lube the fibers. In this case water and ice will lube the fibers. The idea is to reduce the friction factor on the fibers in ropes. For the drop tests, what was the outside temperature and humidity during the tests?
I know this is way past timely for this video, but coming at this from a complete non-climber's perspective, I do a fair bit of fishing and most of our lines are nylon (either single strand/monofilament or braided) and those lines will begin to wear out after about 2 years of regular use (i.e. you want to replace the bulk of your spool after that amount of time) because the nylon will absorb water and dirt and will begin to degrade (you can sometimes see this with colored lines rubbing off micro-plastic dust just from light finger friction while reeling in an unloaded line). Such lines are more susceptible to snapping under sudden load and to abrasion (which seems broadly comparable to what might break a rope in a worst case scenario).
Given that, my concern would be that a rope getting wet and drying regularly over a longer period of time might indeed weaken a rope more than one that was being stored inside a reasonably conditioned building, but I don't think that would be any more apparent in the kind of worst case scenario that such a warning entails. Seems like as long as you're replacing gear at regular, common sense intervals, the effects of water on nylon should be negligible. But maybe there's some material scientists that think otherwise.
3:45 It’s so nice when content creators bow to the almighty algorithm above all else, just like is commanded of them…
“Aw that things PISSIN all over my slack snap machine. JUST THE WAY I LIKE IT!”
Save money, get stronger , buy the non dry treated rope. That said if it is freezing, a wet rope freezes and that really sucks.
I might have missed it. Were all the ropes brand new? Seemed like the difference between the first drop test and the second was pretty consistently higher forces in the second. That might just be due to the rope losing some elasticity from the first fall.
Did knots seem like they got tighter with the wet ropes? I wonder if with less friction they can get tighter and pinch/bend the rope more.
Yes. They were new
Knots absorb some fall. 2nd fall had cinched knots.
I think a rope getting wet is NOT really a problem. The point is really Nylon that has absorbed moisture over time will behave differently. That is moisture with age and not being stored properly in a dry place. Washing ropes after each use is actually a very good thing just make sure it's dried properly before storing.
I can't imagine how tedious someone must be to wash their aboveground ropes after each use. 🤣 Can you come wash my caving gear while you're at it?
I’d like to see the wet rope test done using various devices to see what the effects are, not necessarily on rope strength but on the effectiveness or lack thereof of each device on a wet rope. Like using a prusik, Grigri, ascender, Micro traction, etc.
It may just be my misunderstanding, but it's possible you may not necessarily be comparing apples to apples. A couple of tests that would have been interesting would be to test the elongation after the drop tower for all three ropes in testing, as well as subsequent water retention / weight. The big unknown question remains: if your rope got significantly saturated and took a fall when should you retire it
Comementing for the algorithm, and this is super interesting. Just like most climbing gear, if you're using it in a realistic manner it's super good enough and you'll likely hurt yourself before breaking the gear!
Here is one more comment to help with the algorithm. I really thought the ropes were going to be on sale! I need rope! Great video as always.
You can still buy them :) hhaha
I've always been told that wet ropes aren't necessarily weaker, but if you weight them while they are wet, then then the rope gets significantly more worn then if you let them dry first. I have a rope where it started raining while we were climbing and by the time we were all off the wall we were lowering off of a totally soaked rope, luckily we really only needed to use one side of it. I still have the rope and checking it it's still in good condition and I've been using it regularly for many more months, but the half we used while wet is now super soft and feels close to core shot while the side that did not get weighted is still fairly stiff. I can't think of anything else that I may have done with the rope to leave it as unevenly worn as it is.
i woke up to this video, not to intrested in climbing, but rn im very invested
You know in real life scenario's the only way your rope will be fully soaked is of you drop it in a lake, water fall, or the rain was extremely heavy. So the leaving the rope in water over night would only truly happen when and if you left it out went to sleep and it was out in the rain..
But in textile, water sometimes makes it stronger. And to be honest there are many people that use these ropes when climbing or repelling off water falls or into lakes.. They never seemed to ever have issues
Awesome video! Could you maybe add the metric measurements for the next time for non-US viewers? Imperial just doesn't do it for me 🙃
Too many numbers on a screen makes it more difficult to retain the information. The % is all that matters and my tape measure had inches and my luggage scale had lbs so that is why we used them.
@@HowNOT2 fair!
@@HowNOT2 - great response - thanks for the content. one could just standardise on coke cans (weights and measures) (then one could argue between; 300, 330, 355, and 375ml versions)
(most of the old English empire sort of get by with all types of scales and measures depending on the situation or industry)
I'm curious if having the wet ropes coiled before testing helped with their performance. They weren't pre-streched from use and had some stretch available to soften the falls. I wonder if the danger of a wet rope is the slow stretch recovery that would lead to increasingly harder catches over time? Maybe sling a wet rope over the drop tower with some small weight on the ends for a period of time to simulate some pre-stretch scenario before drop testing.
Thanks for all your hard work. Love your channel. Ignore the haters.
Wet rope recovery could well be the issue. trying to suck air back into a wet rope might well be a LOT harder than sucking air back into a dry rope
So that is why we did 2 of each drop test and since we weren't getting huge changes in the results I'm not sure recovery is that different but i don't know
@@largeformatlandscape - - the "rain" that came out of the "wet rope" means that the second test is essentially with a dry rope. so "sucking in air" may not be a problem. Fibre Fusion from friction at the limit is likely a greater reason why elasticity "may" vary over time, or between falls.
NB. If we are using ropes anywhere near their MBS for human safety activities there is something really wrong with the rigging (Factor of safety is for a reason - fatigue and miscalculation). take care, enjoy.
@@kadmow Even if a lot of water comes out, water will fill all of the interstitial spaces and hence when the rope tries to relax, the channels which would have allowed air back into the rope are filled with water. This seems to make little differences as the second test wasn't much different
Fireball tool did a similar test with ratchet straps and didn't find any difference either
ua-cam.com/video/ifyJjQXOttE/v-deo.html
Test wet straps at 11 minutes
It may take only 1 hour to get the water into the rope, so all air bubbles are removed. But it takes several days or weeks to get the water to absorb into the nylon it self! If a rope has been outside in wet weather, or in a puddle, for a long time it may be much weaker than in these tests. Look up polyamide (or nylon) water absorption curves to see for your self.
So... in 3D printing, we use dehydration ovens to pull the water out of our filaments so they print properly. Assuming nylon continues drawing water in through its life, could dehydrating an old rope cause higher yield figures, essentially restoring a rope?
Edit: also, I learned that dry treatments don't do all that much for the rope weight/water absorption. Thanks!
Maybe they're more worried about damage from being put away wet?
Could you leave a rope wet in the gaeage for a few months?
I'm wondering if uv damage from the sun has more an effect? Maybe try one after being baked in a tanning bed? How much does being used in the elements effect rope degradation?
I imagine the smell of a rope that got put away wet is gonna be bad enough.
@@Pants13 yeah I've had moldy rope before lol
If you're seeing visible molding, just run it through the washing machine.
You can leave wet ropes in caves for a decade without noteable issues.... It's actually funny to see how many folks are oblivious to the other roped sports out there lololol
You guys should do one more wet rope case. Freeze the waterlogged rope... Recently had ropes freeze up while ice climbing to the point that they almost were too stiff to rap.
We tested frozen ropes. link in bio
Yes, yes. But does a wet rope unlock a locking biner faster?
hahahahahahahahahaha
Hey Ryan I'm sure there's a comment in here somewhere covering this topic but... I think the only thing can really be a concern with wet ropes is that wet ropes do not retract as quickly after being stretched. So I would imagine that repeated falls could produce harder and harder catches.
"Satisfy the mob"... I died.
Was looking forward to this video! Thanks!
If you really want to get nerdy… you can plot the data as a stress strain graph to get the Young’s modulus to calculate the stiffness and derive the peak force the rope can withstand and compare that to your drop test. You would need to take more data points on the tension puller, but idk of the juice is worth the squeeze
with the figure 8 tail length debate, could you shock load some with tower to see if it has an impact in that scenario
I would like to see that too please.
I was taught not to leave it too long (about the length of the knot itself), or it might get stuck in a belay device, or get caught in a rock crack, or just generally cause some sort of unwanted interference with whatever. But my friends who have started to climb more recently have learned to leave it about two knots long.
@@Deckzwabber If my knot is too long I tie my safety then tuck my tail into the knot or Yosemite finish the knot.
Hurray for the box plots! 16:39
💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰
They do show an 11 & 15% weaker break force for wet ropes on the averages. Although more data is would be more solid.
This also shows why a safety ratio is important, because you can loose a bunch of strength to different factors.
I'm no statistician, but how TF does he get upper and lower quartiles when there's only 3 samples of each?! it's completely meaningless for that small a sample size.
Where else is "a bunch" of strength lost...? Other than by tying-in? 🤣
super good enough for the algorithm.
Can you please drop test badly/loosely knotted figure eight and bowline knots. How bad/loose/ugly do they have to be to not be super good enough anymore.
In the uiaa tests, all the breakage occurs over a rounded metal edge, which is supposed to represent the last piece of protection. Can you add a similar edge in your system? The metal edge is essentially supposed to be a 1 cm steel biner.
I think you guys should test different other types of rope, wet and dry, on the drop tower. Anyway very good video, keep it up!
Once again adding to the reality. Sure, you can break anything if you try hard enough, but as you mentioned, maybe avoid 1.8 factor falls more than getting a rope damp.
Excellent video, showing once again that rope breaks at the knot! Have you ever considered attempting to break rope without knots? I think it would be fun to see the difference the knot makes. It would also be cool to use a no-knot setup if you get around to doing the cryo test or for any other sort of environmental torture test so that you have a reasonable chance of getting rope to break right at the spot you abused (assuming said abuse actually matters). I realize most folks will only rarely or never be using a no-knot but for the purposes of dispelling gear fear, it could be good to see that spilling this or that on your rope either will or won't make it break in that spot even if you take the knot out of the system.
How do you recommend attaching the rope to the test equipment?
@@FlatOutFE A no-knot is a standard and super simple anchor used when you need to pull stupid hard with lots of pulleys. If you wrap the rope several times around a cylinder of much larger diameter than your rope (in the field, this is generally a tree), friction holds it. In order to keep the whole thing together and preload the tail you still throw an 8 on the end and clip it back to the load line, but if you did it right the knot will see at most a few pounds of tension and won't really be part of the system.
@@FlatOutFE you wrap it around a barrel with a large bend radius a few times..
There might be older videos where he tests strength of knots where he did that.
a lot of plastic like nylon can absorb moisture from their environment over an extended period of time often this causes it to become more brittle or affect wear cycling it would be interesting to look at the difference at longer exposure to see what that affect water absorbed into the material itself has compared to water that has been sucked into the inter fiber spaces like a sponge
I made a comment and I hit the like button.
Me: Buys Rocky Talkies
Ryan: And here is a 24% discount on Rocky Talkies
What if your rope already had knots that had been loaded and then got wet does the rope swell effect the already tight knots strength. love the gear break series keep up the awesome work
I'd be willing to bet it makes no difference. Even the swelling from freezing the rope is nothing compared to how deformed the knots get when pulling so hard.
I could be wrong though.
If knots getting wet were dangerous, canyoneers and cavers would be dead.
This would look really cool if you did a colab with The SlowMo Guys!
Really cool video!
Finally found the discount code. Thanks!
1:05 genuinely shook at how easy those scissors went through that rope
They are speciality scissors we use to cut UHMDPE (dyneema, amsteel etc) which is quite difficult to cut otherwise.
@@HowNOT2 and now my heart can resume normal bpm.
Have you ever watched videos of cutting a loaded rope? Shit goes through it like butter :)
the soft shackle design should be around your torso or around your arms, just a random idea, hope it helps you sell more shirts!
Hey Ryan, been looking for the code for the rocky talkies, and I know a few other guys have too, but I think they got lost in the comments. Is it still up?
Also, thanks for all you do. Keep up the fantastic work
Its in the Beal Ice Line product page on www.extremegear.org/ shhhhhhhh :)
Commenting for the algorithm. Love the videos
It never made sense to me that H2O would dangerously weaken a rope. But a question is whether moulds would produce enzymes that would eat at petroleum based fibers in a way that was significant. Hard to test, but coming from Indonesia, the fear was that humidity and water could conspire to weaken ropes. Any way to test ropes left wet in a bag in a humid state for, say a month?
This is interesting
Cavers have done some tests with this because we will leave permanently rigged ropes in caves for upwards of a decade (...and caves are wet). There has yet to be any significant findings.
Derek Bristol has some pull tests of some ropes that were rigged for 10+ yrs in caves, several with visible quantities of mold on them. You can find the video on his UA-cam channel (search "Derek Bristol" and it's on one of his vertical playlists).
Now, copious amounts of bird shit on your ropes? Yeah that could be a problem. A graduate student in Dr. Hazel Barton's lab at University of Akron is working on studying that.
TLDR: you're fine-- trust me, caving is 100x's more abusive
@@rachelhasbruises Wow, really cool. Thank you!
@@rachelhasbruises Yeah, I did see some of the tests they did on extremely old ropes in caves. I guess I'm most interested in something in between--what's most common for climbers being stuff like leaving a damp rope in a bag for a couple of weeks by mistake, for instance. Does that mean the rope should be thrown away (as many climbers will advise). There was some test that one of the rope companies did in the late 80s that was talked about a lot back then--where a rope that was rated for 8 falls was kept in a drawer in good conditions (no UV or humidity) for 10 years and supposedly it broke on the first fall. So the idea was that nylon deteriorates with time regardless of conditions. But It always seemed to me that ropes made of petroleum based products were probably not succeptable to fungus-caused deterioration as the fungus would probably just feed on the moisture and organic material perhaps embedded in the rope but not eat into the plastic/nylon itself...
@@ariefnagara I think you're really missing the big picture.
...you don't think that ropes being stored in caves for decades isn't a 1000x more extreme version of your damp bag idea?
Caves are wet. What is wet literally never dries because the ambient humidity underground is extremely high (like... 90% or something).
Aboveground, your rope will dry out long before any microbes make significant colonization that would impact strength even in the slightest...
Somehow with the drop tower and Decker, I feel like I'm watching an execution, a hanging, in the ol' West or sumpin'.
About to buy all of the Rocky Talkies just for the carabiners! 😆 👍
hahahahahaha. i hear they are strong
Can’t believe i missed out on that rocky talkie deal 😔
hey could you revisit this with 11mm static ropes?? rope access peeps would love to see it. thank you if so
Some caving / canyoning ropes are made of polyester because it is impervious to the same water effects as nylon is weakened by. I believe many harnesses are too.
The reason for this is not strength, but for elongation and carry weight. LEP, low-elongation polyester, is incredibly unstretchy and does not become any more stretchy when wet. And, since it doesn't really take up water in the hydrogen-bonding way like nylon, your soaking wet rope actually weighs a fair bit less after it drips out for a minute. I believe my imlay rope is rated at 0.5% stretch at 300 lbs, super duper static. This is desirable to avoid rope wear on angry surfaces and unneccesary bounce-and-wiggle on the sorts of no-fall 'anchors' canyoneers wind up using. Climbers don't use this sort of rope because it would make gravel out of your pelvis. We also like more sheath than core, again because we're more concerned with abrasion resistance than shock loading.
Same thing goes for harnesses, obviously you don't want your harness able to stretch over your iliac crest.
As a one of the mob, plz and thanku for going the extra mile and pre-empting our nitpicks! We appreciate it 100%, this channel is the most super good enough! Luvyaloads!
@@kiereluurs1243 is there a certain word or phrase you're struggling to comprehend?
I asked some arborists if they used dry-ropes, they just laughed and called it a scam.
The real lesson from the UIAA tests sounds like it's "once a rope has saved your life in a bad drop, replace it".
It would be interesting to put a thermocouple device on the knot to see what heat is being (if any) when you stretch the rope.
A "super good Enough" sticker with every purchase, I'm in! Lmao
im just here to support the boys