UKH

I love both of these bits of kit, but had a fright today at the local wall. The krab turned round so that the narrow end was through the belay device, and the broader, flat end against my harness belay loop.

Oh well I thought, how much difference can it make?

Answer: A LOT. I was able to lower my leader with an effort; if he'd taken a significant fall I would have struggled to hold him, and would have got burnt in the process.

I previously thought those carabiners with the plastic sleeve were just to stop crabs rotating 90° and cross loading the gate; I was wrong.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

If you haven't seen it see (3) http://weighmyrack.com/sites/weighmyrack.com/files/product_resources/Wild%2...

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

The title ' safety alert' might be slightly unfair to WC since a belay master is in the instructions for use. Perhaps ' safety reminder ' is more appropriate.

However, I also had an issue with the SRC I had become complacent with and didn't check with the owner of a rope I was using. An older skinny single rope looked like a standard diameter rope. And it worked as usual for most of the climbing we did that day. Only when my climbing partner was working a section of a route over and over, the rope flattened in the section and the SRC lost its control on the rope. Luckily no one was injured.

In reply to Nicola:
I thought about that, but it really did catch me out, and the documentation doesn't emphasise how critical the right carabiner is.

For balance I did emphasise how great they are; I still think that.