UKC

I'm just in the process of making up some new alpine draws. My current ones have the rope krab fixed as per quickdraw but would there be any real world disadvantages of fixing the gear end krab too? I reckon the increased chance of it lifting out gear at 60cm extension would be negligible, and I think it could be a little neater. Thoughts?

In reply to Laurence20:

I use sling draws with one end captive not thought about both ends

make sure your partner and yourself have seen this http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=46912

Davey

In reply to Laurence20:
What would happen if you used one to loop over a big spike and fell on it?

In reply to john arran:
I tend to just use them as normal extenders,I have a couple of older 60cm open slings for threads/spikes.

Yeah, I've seen the vid, scary stuff.. I guess what would be handy would be a 60cm floppy closed sling. I know it's not really a major issue, I just like faff to me kept to a minimum..

In reply to Laurence20:

Have you seen the Grivel S-M-L jobby?

http://tinyurl.com/z6cvbn8

In reply to Dell:

No, I've not- it looks quite smart though. Reckon I'll stick to my standard draws, cheers for the opinions though!

In reply to Laurence20: This is a slightly controversial one, that definitely splits opinion.

I have used 60cm x 8mm draws, captive both ends for 13+ years. Although I also carry several 'free' 60cm slings and plenty of spare wiregates.

There are several clear and significant advantages.
1 - once deployed they are quicker and easier to rack whilst still extended. Just clip one krab to the other. This makes life considerably easier for the second once they are aware of it.
2 - they are significantly easier to re-rack (i.e. triple up again). This is especially true in Winter when wearing gloves.

On the other hand there are several disadvantages:
1 - There is a 'nack' to extending them. One krab needs to go back through the other or you end up with the sling knotted around one of the krabs. (Not a safety issue, just a faff to sort out.)
2 - You can't easily rack them over your shoulder as you can if the krabs are loose.
3 - There is a potential complete failure mechanism as mentioned by other posters. This is actually very unlikely to occur IF you are familiar with such draws and is easily spotted but you can't get away from it.

For me, the fact they are still easy enough to rack and use whilst fully extended beats the other considerations.

In reply to The Ex-Engineer:
I think I'll give it a try for the reasons you've stated above. Maybe a slight improvement would be fixing the rope end krab as usual, but fixing the gear end slightly more loosely (o-ring around sling?) maybe 2cm from krab, as this would allow the sling to rotate when extending.

Yeah, I think it's very unlikely you'd clip into the loop when extending, maybe when making them back to 20cm, though I guess you could put an extra turn at each krab before fixing them, which would eliminate the risk.