Fall arrest lanyards are not designed for positioning, and positioning
lanyards are not designed for fall arrest. Depending on the design of the
fall arrest lanyard, this person may be weakening the fall arrest lanyard's
trigger mechanism. At best, this may cause it to trigger when pulled during
normal use, necessitating replacement. At worst, this may reduce the fall
arrest lanyard's ability to cushion a fall. Serious injury and perhaps death
could result from that.
When I need to rest on the tower, I use a 6" climbing strap with carabiners
at both ends. One end of the strap is attached to the front D-ring on my
harness, and the other carabiner can be quickly clipped onto a tower brace.
This lets me lean back to rest. Of course, my fall-arrest lanyard (a
two-hook "Y" design) is hooked in place before doing this. When I get to the
working position, I attach both hooks of the fall-arrest lanyard and quickly
clip on with the short strap. This frees both hands for threading the
positioning lanyard through the tower.
Before I added the strap, I found myself wasting energy clinging to the
tower with one hand while trying to thread the positioning lanyard through
the tower or throw it around the tower. If I don't need to move around much,
I'll leave the strap, the positioning lanyard and the fall-arrest lanyard in
place. Thus, I'm clipped to the tower four ways! Overkill, but it's my life
we're talking about here. If I need to move around, then I unclip the short
strap. Sometimes when I need a long rest while climbing, I clip the harness
end of the strap to the lower D-ring on my Petzel harness, which allows me
to make use of the harness "sit" feature.
Short, man-rated climbing straps and carabiners can be found at vendors of
rock-climbing gear.
73, Dick WC1M
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Neil Mayo [mailto:neilmayo@brightok.net]
> Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 4:41 PM
> To: towertalk@contesting.com
> Subject: [TowerTalk] Fall Arrest Lanyard
>
> A search of the archives brought up a person who uses his
> fall arrest lanyard to rest while climbing. Is this something
> that should be done? I've always been afraid of doing this. I
> use my postioning lanyard to tie off for resting with the FAL
> overhead.
>
>
> Neil Mayo
> KC5AMX
>
>
>
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