Addendum to "Qualifying a Rescue Rope"

Some of the most important qualities of a rescue rope are not measured or reported to the consumer in a way which can be used for meaningful comparison. Tensile strength is commonly reported, but cut strength, abrasion resistance, and prusik slipping forces are not. Failures in mountain rescue systems are far more likely to be caused by these issues than by tensile overloads. A mountain rescue team which changes brands of rope or which uses more than one brand of rope will want to understand how these parameters vary from one manufacturer to the next. One series of tests was done on different brands of 11mm rope and on 1" tubular webbing. The results are presented here. Purpose My purpose in writing this report is not to recommend for or against the use of any manufacturer's product. It is to discuss the properties of nylon rope which are most relevant to a mountain rescue team, and to describe a program for testing those properties. I hope that other mountain rescuers will find useful information in this report. However, there is no real substitute for doing your own testing on your own equipment and directly observing the failures. Having a rope explode on a rock edge is a sobering experience that every rescuer should see first hand. The tests described here are ones that any rescue team can perform for themselves. The understanding you'll gain from doing your own testing will beat anything you can get from reading a paper. Background