5 years ago
I'm considering a SupAir acro base harness. I read the manual and it says it's not for winching/towing, which would be one of my primary uses for it (SIV courses).
Is that something I should pay attention to or is a base system fine for towing?
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Hi Woody. You do not need base for SIVs as you flying over the water. Supair acro 3 harness with 2 round or square reserves will do the job. Way easier to repack.
Supair base is good for flying over land / hostile terrain so in case of reserve deployment you can pick safe landing box.
Still you really need to know you equipment and be confident with repacking base. Do it many times with experienced rigger. Then try to deploy over water. Once again in case of emergency you should not have ANY hesitation and be 100% confident in you rescue system.
All the best.
Base towing .
Most importantly - make sure SPLIT bridles only. If you are asking why you should not be on the tow.
Whether you hook towing bridles directly to carabinres or using soft links it does not matter. What does matter it is using climbing carabiners - one end permanently attached to towing bridles another clip on/off to harness carabiners or soft link. So even when you using split bridles after release you must unclip bridles from harness and put it away in the pocked. If you leave bridles flopping around in case of reserve deployment you are risking getting hurt by free ends or worse it might tangle and affect successful reserve deployment.
To avoid metal to metal contact, I rapped climbing carabiners harness ends in plastic tubes.
* please remember in case of weak link failure you are released BUT towing bridles still unsplit /connected together so you should do it manually asap.
Hope it will keep you safer.
Regards
I know many people who used BASE for towing, including me (~ 13 clinics). There is a trick to how you connect bridals safely (connect to carabiners via soft links), that's about it.
I have been towing with the base harness. Using Dudek bridle hooked to the carabiners, have to be careful they don't rotate. After pinning off they are moved away from carabiners for a clean cut a way.
I'm using Supair Acro Base harness most of time with towing. I have attached towing bridle to main carabines and have tested base system on SIV course , and it works fine, just let the towing bridle hang outside. I have puted orings around bridle so it stays in same place on carabines.
I have used the Supair acro base for towing on many different occasions. refer to my attached picture. I use these two points with D links and a normal towing bridle. Obviously you cant tow off the main carbines like a normal harness. I think soft links on the webbing points would work even better.