Hi all,

I have a New England Safety Blue rope (16 strand) that has a puff in it. The puff is about half of the fibers of 1 of the 16 strands of the sheath. My first question is whether it's possible to repair or get around (trim?) the puff in a safe way. It's close enough to the middle of my rope that cutting it out will leave me with 2 ropes not long enough for climbing a tree of decent size.

My second, and more general question, concerns the age of the rope. The rope is about 10 yrs old, but I've only used it for maybe 20 climbs or so. I do safety checks on it (examine the entire length by eye and feel, looking for sheath problems, core showing, uneven diameter, etc) before almost every climb and the only problem I can detect is the one puff. I know many folks recommend retirement of soft gear after much less time, but how much is use a factor? If you buy a rope and leave it in the closet (properly stored) for 10 yrs, can you still climb on it?

Thanks,
Alex

Most ropes, particularly the 16-strand like your Safety Blue or the various 12-strands, will get an occasional spot like yours. Some climbers trim them off and others don't; probably a matter of personal preference. Generally, I would keep in mind that it's there and check it regularly -- if it gets worse then you might want to (ouch, oooch, ouch) cut it.

As for the age of the rope and other software, the current practice is 10 years if it's used for rec climbing or a much shorter period if used for professional tree work. It's good that you're inspecting the rope at every climb (I do that with every rope I own both before and after each climb).

Your rope's 10 years old and has been stored in what's probably a very dry spot. The dryness does have some negative effect on the fibers, possibly as much as 25 to 30 percent loss of strength over that time period. Safety Blue is rated at 7,700 pounds average strength when new, so yours could be down to as low as 5,300 to 5,600 pounds.

Would I personally climb on your rope? The answer is "probably," but I'd anchor it over a good limb and then get several people to hang on it before I trusted my life to it. And then I'd follow the "Go slow, stay low" rule until I was satisfied with it.

Would I put somebody else on your rope? We-eelll, that depends on whether or not I like 'em...!

If you are very patient you can work the puff both ways along the strand and spread the slack of the puff out up and down the rope as much as possible. Takes a while though!

Here's my rope strategy. All ropes eventually fail. When? It's difficult to predict. Thus, establish criteria. Mine is 8 years with knowledge of a ropes history, and I'll retire it. Without knowing it's history, there's no need to climb on it.

Most of my climbs are on a 5 year old New England Fly. The more I try to wear it out, the more I like it.

I'm always looking for a reason to retire gear.

Thanks for the input everyone! I anchored the rope SRT-style and had myself and another person put our weight on it, it didn't budge (no surprise there). I decided to treat it as if it has lost about 50% of its strength (putting it around 3500lbs) to be on the safe side. In my mind means no shock loading (i.e. no limb walking etc), no big pendulum swings etc, just ascending and descending DRT. I've done a few climbs and the rope seems to be fine.... I'm still planning on investing in a new rope soon!