SRT Kit

So the purpose of this isn’t to describe and list the pros and cons of every type of SRT equipment. That has been done eloquently elsewhere, and takes up whole chapters of books.. Instead, I want to lay out what equipment NUCC has on it’s SRT sets, and (briefly) why. We have 12 (mostly) standardised club SRT sets, and the general approach is that what will work on one set will work on another. Of course, some members have their own kit, and that is usually slightly different to what the club kit is.

Descender:

• SRTE Aluminium 5-bar U-frame Rack
• Aspiring Stainless Steel 5-bar U-frame Rack
• Petzl Simple
• Petzl Stop The main club descenders are the aluminium racks, but we are gradually transitioning to the stainless steel racks as these wear out. We own a selection of Stops and Simples, and members are welcome to use them, but we prefer U-frame racks over them. We like the racks because they are simple to lock off, and easy for beginners to use.

Ascenders:

• Petzl Ascension
• Petzl Croll We only have Petzl ascenders on the club kits, as we generally believe that Petzl still produces the best quality ascenders. All our Crolls are older version ones, equivalent to the current Large model Croll (the Small model has serious design flaws). We don’t use foot ascenders (so, the Petzl Pantin) because they wear the chest ascender out faster, and are a general embuggerance for beginners. People are welcome to use them as personal kit in the club however.

Sit Harness: Mostly the Petzl Fractio, with one MTDE Amazonia I and one Petzl Superavanti floating around. Fractios are expensive (especially at Australian prices), but are exceptionally hard-wearing and low profile, even if they’re not the most comfortable of harness. They also have metal attachment points to the central D-ring, which make them very easy to use. I’m still not sold that the yellow (black on newer models) secondary belt actually does anything to improve comfort.

Cowstails: Standard caving double cowstails, with locking carabiners. Always use 9-10.5mm dynamic rope for your cowstails, and make sure it is not a half rope or something like that. Our current (bluey-purple) cowstails are about 10mm, the new ones are 9.8mm.

Connectors:

Chest Harness:

Foot Loop: