UKC

I managed to pop the sewn in leg loop holder on my Edelrid Moe 3R (this very harness: https://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/climbing/harnesses/edelrid_moe_3r_-_the_fir... ) on Saturday. Has anyone else managed this? It made quite an audible 'pop' which was mildly disconcerting while lowering-off! 

I was lowering off a sport climb I had given up on (the shame...) when it happened. My friend who was belaying immediately asked had I re-tied in before lowering, over it rather than through it which made a lot of sense. But because I was lowering off a single staple bolt rather than a chain or maillons at the top, I didn't do my normal method of pulling a bight up and through the lower-off, fig of 8 and screwgate onto my harness before untying my main knot. Instead I tied the rope in so I couldn't drop it then undid my knot before passing the single end of the rope through the staple and retying in as normal and coming off my leash and lowering. Because this isn't my normal way of lowering, I checked and checked again that everything was right before coming off my leash. I'm sure if I hadn't tied in as normal I would have notice then. 

I was swing around a bit to get quickdraws out as I came down and the pop happened as I was reaching out sideways. I suspect that the rope knot loop pushed itself, the belay loop, and possibly the larks foot of my leash on the belay loop, into the corner against the sewing that popped creating a strong wedge force - strong enough to blow the stitching anyway. 

It's not the end of the world as this isn't a load bearing part of the harness. But having used a dozen or more harnesses with a similar basic design over the last 30 odd years, I've not managed to do this ever before, whilst I have lowered off very many sport (and trad!) routes over the year with the rope in the same arrangement as it was on Saturday. I'm just interested in whether this is one of those things that does sometimes happen, or whether the design of this specific model of harness might have made it more likely?

You re-tied in on the outside of the lower holding loop, so putting it under pressure.

As I said, I'm really certain for the reasons set out in the original post, that I didn't.

I'd contact Edelrid and the BMC and tell them about it.

My question for you is how old is the harness?

In order to have popped it in the way you describe, you would have had to have your legs at wildly different heights - which I "suppose" is possible if you were reaching out a long way sideways.

It's not load bearing and just there for convenience - I'd trim off the other end and carry on using it until you're ready to replace the harness. 

Just check for wear on the belay loop, leg loops and harness loop as per usual.

I think the belay loop gradually buggers the harness loop on these harnesses before anything else.

About 14 months old. By my standards it's not very old. It has been my main harness during that time but not my only one. I haven't used it for winter climbing for example. 

14 months is relativtly new. I'd definitely be contacting Eldelrid about it

Was the first photo taken once you got to the ground?

If so it seems strange that the short section of strapping is running up and over the belay loop and not hanging down as I would expect it to be.

If you say you were reaching over for quickdraws can you recall having one leg far out to the side to aid your reach? This could put it under some tension and I have seen it happen but very rarely.

Yep but...

...I think this is just that I was lowering off from the rope loop not the belay loop, so my weight through the rope loop would have pulled the leg loop strong point and the waist belt strong point together with the belay loop not under any tension. This I'm sure is why the leg loops including the broken strap is 'high' in that first photo I snapped immediately after lowering down. 

I'm sure it was something like that. I'm still wondering if the larks foot of the leash also got trapped by the rope loop and helped pop the stitching. As I said, I don't think I've ever done this before - lots of my older harnesses did though have thinner tape, almost just ribbon, there and in two sections with a slim light buckle of some sort there in order to allow you to fully remove the leg loops from the harness. I think on one harness I added some duct tape to the buckle as I was annoyed it kept coming open - so perhaps that happened under similar tension as what must have caused this.

Had an Edelrid harness fail in same area about 4/5 years ago. Me and my partner have a consistent habit of buddy checks; I took a big inverted fall over a roof, lowered off and that's when we saw the damage.

We came to the conclusion that I had tied in under the lower retaining strap and we missed it in the check. At least that was all we could think of that might have caused it to break 🤷‍♀️

Cheers - interesting that it was another Edelrid harness. That could of course just be complete chance, but maybe not. Your situation sounds pretty similar in that you think it was unlikely (because of the buddy checks) that didn't tie in over the leg loop holder strap but having popped it you felt that was most likely mechanism. I guess if you fell inverted in some way your legs might have been in weird positions, so possibly you had tied in correctly (just as I think I probably did), but some unusual angled force was enough to pop the strap's non-load bearing stitching?

It's possible the angle played a part; the last draw was on my left as I moved right before fluffing it and spilling over backwards. I can't remember which harness it was but looking at your picture I don't remember the leg loops being those colours.

Just impossible to rule out that I might have made a mistake tying in and it getting missed in the check

The stitching broke. Not totally sure what you mean by 'pulled out'?

Sorry unclear question ..but that part on my harness is kind of rolled and stiched into the legloop proper.  So you've answered that it was a stitching failure rather than the tape/fabric itself.

Have Edelridsaid anything? I assume you won't be using it again?

It's not a load bearing part of the harness, it's only really there for convenience so I will keep using the harness. I might duck tape it in place and see how long before I put enough pressure on it to pop the duck tape.

Mentioning this to Edelrid (or their UK distributor) seems like a good idea.

Also maybe give a spoiler alert next time you're posting close-up crotch shots.

Or a link to your Only Fans page

Out of interest I looked at this problem this afternoon with my Petzl Hirundos harness. If I passed the rope under the loop instead of where it's supposed to be, and then weighted it I'm sure it would have torn the stitching and ended up looking just like yours. I reckon that's what you must have done, Toby. 

On the other hand, if you imagine taking a fall while your body is completely sideways horizontal, the force would be applied directly to the point of contact between the leg loop and the retaining strap. It's very easy in this case to believe that such a fall could easily rip the tacks on the retaining strap.

Also, it's perhaps relevant that everyone reporting having experienced such an incident has described it happening with an inverted or certainly far from upright fall. Surely there must be a great many upright falls held when the tie-in has been outside of the retaining strap, but somehow none of these seem to have led to the strap ripping.

As your fig 8 loop is still attached to both the legs and waist I think you have tied in correctly!

If you had only tied in around the central leg strap and not the main part of the harness, the fig 8 loop would be only secured around the waist section after it snapped (if that makes sense).

I don't follow your logic here. I think you're envisioning a different category of mistake with rope location than other people. I assume, and I think it's what other people were also suggesting, that the rope was essentially in the correct location with respect to the belay loop, but that the bottom section was outside the non-load-bearing retaining loop. Once the retaining loop is broken, that's indistinguishable from a fully correct tie-in.

Yep, exactly this, I think Peter has misunderstood my original post. 

I'm not convinced it would be. Surely the way the load compresses the rope loop would tend to still pull the rope away from the retaining strap (when tied in correctly).

Don't we just have a single account if it happening in a fall like this (from Fowley)? With Toby's example happening while lowering rather than in any kind of fall.

I think it's logical that there could be enough slack in the retaining loop for it to handle being squeezed by the rope while Toby's legs are pointing fairly straight down, but that if he tried to get the leg loops apart while pushing himself sideways, that could be trying to straighten out the retaining strap against the force of the rope, potentially with quite a bit of mechanical advantage. But it does seem likely that Fowley might have been more likely to flail his legs around in odd directions during an awkward fall with a sideways component than if taking an average fall.

I totally accept that what you say is the most logical reason for how it happened - in my OP I did note Andy, my mate/climbing partner last saturday, said that as soon as I was on the ground and noticed what had happened (we both had heard the pop noise on the way down). My only reason for thinking this isn't what happened was, as I said in the OP, that I was lowering off a single bolt so had to thread the bolt and re-tie-in a different way to my normal method. So even though every time I prepare to lower off a sport climb I try to do a full "systems check" before I come off my leash and re-weight the rope, on that particular route I did a double check of everything to be extra-specially careful. That's why I'm pretty certain I hadn't tied in over the retaining strap. 

I say "pretty certain" because I'm not 100 percent, and we all know from accident analysis that sometime people look and check and still don't catch the mistake even when they think they will. I was just interested to hear if anyone else has managed to do this over the years - as I said I haven't before. Ultimately it isn't super important because that strap isn't part of the 'safety-critical' structure of the harness, but I'm always interested in how my climbing gear works in real world situations. 

If nothing else this discussion might remind someone to check they haven't tied in OVER that retaining strap without noticing it, just in case that is what I did and that resulted in the dramatic 'pop' noise! 

I think both of you make fair points, and I'm really not sure myself. I think the pop happened as I was reaching out to the side to wrestle a quickdraw off a bolt (you know when they are under tension by the up rope running through), I think I might have been the lowest one which are often the hardest to clean. So I was probably doing something weird with my legs counter balancing stretching out to the right.

When I got on the ground and looked at what had happened, at the time I got the idea the load rope loop had actually pushed the belay loop and in particular the larks foot of my leash into that corner. Again that might have just been an instant hypothesis to try and think how it happened, but I think that idea came about from my first look down. I took the photo above very soon after but I would have had to have lent down and got my phone etc. so things could have shifted by then.

In a fall, the rope tie-in will cinch the waistbest and legloop together. Normally that will be on part of the waistbelt that isn't touching the retaining strap, but in a very sideways orientation, without any retaining strap I would definitely expect the cinch point to be right at the side of the waist belt. Without the retaining strap it would continue further around the waistbelt more to the side of the harness. The only thing stopping it doing this is the retaining strap, which is why it seems clear to me that this is the reason why the retaining strap has been partially loaded.