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Re: [OM] Where is Nathan !

Subject: Re: [OM] Where is Nathan !
From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 12:06:20 -0500
> Ken, You voiced my thoughts. One screw gate caribiner, and one strap down 
> from the pulley does not really give a margin of safety if there is equipment 
> failure. Would NOT be acceptable in the UK on safety grounds.


I haven't seen our configuration in a year, but did ask my daughters
about it as they rode them at least 50 times last week. They didn't
pay all that much attention to those details, but did confirm these
basics.

The truck has a much shorter connecting strap between the two
caribiners with the lower one connected to the harness as shown. There
is then a second safety loop that goes from the harness and up and
over the truck itself. If the truck were to fail or break away from
the cable, the safety loop will suspend the rider from the cable
itself. Even the harness has a secondary attach point allowing for
failure.

Before every session, every inch of cable is inspected and a practice
rescue is performed. Once a week, every operator has to perform a
rescue which involves the lowering of the person to the ground. In all
cases, there has to be a redundant connection and during any rescue
nothing is ever disconnected until two other ropes are attached. The
procedure is so exacting that you can do it blindfolded.

They practice the rescues so a worst case situation where you have a
full truck failure at the sag point with an unconscious rider can be
lowered to the ground or brought to either end in under 20 minutes.
It's extremely rare to have to perform a rescue due to an equipment
failure or injury, but once in a while it happens and every operator
in our place is fully certified for it. With the volume of riders we
deal with, I think each cable takes five people, so we've got 35
people on site capable of running a rescue operation. They usually
have one or two rescues a day because of somebody grabbing the cable
in a panic and stopping before they get to the end. But that's not bad
considering that they move over 10,000 riders in a week. We've got the
biggest zipline operation in the entire region. We do the
certifications on every operator (law requires fewer) as it keeps our
insurance premiums under control.

I really enjoyed riding it but the harness and certain body parts
don't always cooperate.

If I recall, during the certification process of the lines themselves,
they have to be tested with 6000 pound loads.

Our fastest one is around 50-60 MPH and the highest one over 150 feet
above the ground as it crosses over the valleys.

-- 
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
-- 
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