![\"Bad](\"\/images\/stories\/techtalk\/bad_hook1.jpg\" "\\"Bad")
\nAbove: Bad safety hook.<\/p>\n
by Skip Allan (guest contributor)<\/p>\n
\nAbove: Bad safety hook.<\/p>\n
Heads up, safety harness wearers. If your harness tether is clipped into a padeye, you may be in for an unscheduled swim due to the possibility of the carabiner or snap hook on the end of the tether unhooking itself from the padeye.<\/p>\n
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I had never considered this until I had it happen on a dark, windy night beating up the coast of Baja. My harness tether was hooked into a padeye to weather of the wheel. Repeatedly, the tether would come unhooked and fall into the wheel well. By flashlight I was able to see what was happening. The culprit was the carabiner on my new Lirakis harness. Its spring-loaded gate would press against the bale of the padeye and when a light strain came onto the tether, the gate was pressed open and the carabiner popped off the padeye with the enthusiasm of a grasshopper escaping an approaching lawnmower.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, nobody went overboard that night. Since then, harness manufacturers I have contacted play down the likelihood of this potentially fatal situation happening. Their consensus has been that the carabiner doesn’t naturally want to lay on a padeye in this dangerous position. But I reckon they must have done their testing on a level deck during broad daylight, not rail-down on a bucking ULDB in big seas. One shouldn’t have to check which way the carabiner is facing in these conditions, as the motion of the boat and crew may change the carabiner’s position at any time. But the boat doesn’t have to be underway for things to go wrong. I have repeated the experiment with a similar harness on an active three year old while the boat was in its slip. The results were sobering to say the least.<\/p>\n
There are many different harness manufacturers I am not familiar with. But three I have tested possess this intrinsic design flaw, and so probably do most of the rest. The Lirakis, the Switlik, and the West Marine harness all use variations of the Wichard carabiner or snaphook, and all will open accidentally. The West Marine harness has a spring-loaded gate lock which gives a false sense of security but no protection against accidental opening.<\/p>\n
Other than being aware of this problem, I can suggest several solutions. One is to buy a tether with a threaded locking device on the carabiner. But these are difficult to find, more expensive, and usually take both hands to secure. A second possibility is to use a double action safety hook that will not accidentally open. Such a hook is manufactured by the Gibb company and used on Henri Lloyd harness tethers.<\/p>\n
Finally, a simple solution would be to instruct the crew only to hook onto a jackline and never into a padeye. But this still leaves open the possibility that someone may not get the word. After all, a padeye and a harness hook look like they were made for each other. Caveat Emptor.<\/p>\n
Skip Allan<\/p>\n
Santa Cruz, CA<\/p>\n
With regards to your article about padeyes opening, the phenomenon was written about in the UK sailing magazines a couple of years ago with the same warnings and more about the danger of the caribiners opening unexpectedly. This was after a top sailor was lost overboard and drowned in a round-the-buoy race when his tether did just this.<\/p>\n
My father and have a simple solution whereby we attach a shackle to the padeye FIRST, then the caribiner to the shackle. While it takes some dexterity to do this one-handed, it can be done, and once attached in this manner, the flexibility in the connection prevents the caribiner from inadvertently unclipping itself.<\/p>\n
Thanks for a great and informative site,<\/p>\n
Chris Upton (added 21 July 2002)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"