Basejumper.com - archive

Hi Folks,

Has anyone done a SL slackline jump. I am looking into doing one which is around 180ft which I don't want to freefall. I should also point out, I can't slackline, but I can climb.

Is there a way to do this which provides for clean extraction?

Im sure its possible, but at 180ft might be interesting not alot of room for error. the problem i can see is that the slackline will be like a spring as you exit check out Andy lewis "sketchy andy 20 video" he goes super head low as he exits.

you could hang off it with your hands with the SL attached to a beaner on the line the problem i can see is bridle control and premature opening but if your careful im sure it could work- i personally would want it higher. but def doable... can i film?

Never done a jump from a slackline, but I have highlined quite a bit and for sure there is a lot of spring in the line, but I don't imagine that it would make a huge difference. Here is how I would do it..

Wear your rig and a your climbing harness. Tyrloe out to the exit. Hang in your climbing harness and set your SL. At 180' hight I would no doubt set TWO piece of break cord. Attach a locking biner to the slackline and then the two piece of break cord to the biner.

Then I would "S" fold the bridal and secure it with either one wrap of painters tape or tailgate rubberband, to keep it from blowing around and possibly tangling. Do a quick check of your setup, unclip from the line and hang from the slackline from your hands. Make sure there is no bridal wrap and let go. The recoil from the line should easily break/pop the tape/tailgate rubber band hold the bridal and keep the whole setup clear from you.

...................

Other thoughts...What does everyone else think??

1. The locking biner that you have your SL attached to:

Throw a few wraps of tape between the slackline and biner. What this will do... 1. It will keep the biner from flipping around when the slackline recoils. Possibly resulting in a bridal wrap with the slackline. 2. It will allow you to move away from the biner, because the biner will want to follow you down the line (if there is a lot of bend in the line).

2. Attachment point of SL and PC...

I think it would be best to attach the SL at the PC attachment point. Why? because then you can "S" fold most of your bridal so you are clear from it. Also, I would take the PC.. pull it "long" so that it is stretched out as much as possible from the attachment point to the top cap. I would "mount" the PC to the BOTTOM of the slackline by larks heading a rubberband to the line and inserting a small bit of material from the top of the PC. (Maybe confusing, if you want I can set up a demo and take a pic)

What will this do? 1. It will keep the PC from blowing around in the wind and possible wrapping around the slackline. 2. When the slackline recoils the PC will remain stagnant and can not flip around the slackline... again causing a wrap.

3. Hanging from the line by your hands...

It might be a good idea to try and bounce (get the line going up and down) the slackline while hanging under it. My thoughts behind this is that if you can release at the top of your bounce you will reduce the slackline recoil when you release and thus cause much less stress on the break cord. Curious what other think of this idea.

.....................

Okay... that's all I've got. Maybe i'm WAY over thinking it, who knows. My thought would be to set a slackline head hight with a piece of webbing from your climbing rack and test it out. Wear your rig and do the whole thing in your back yard/park first. There might be factors that you didn't consider or you see some way to improve what you were thinking. Sounds cool man! I like it.. best of luck!!

Cheers!
Svin

Attached a photo of me whipping off and you can see how much weird shit the line does. (Using a standard dbl line taped together setup)

Good advice so far. My idea is:
- Reverse the pins, so that the top pin is pulled first. This might help to reduce snag potential. I would also short-line the bridle and with the excess bungee kept out of the way to the side.
- A 2nd person would be suspended on the line next to me to give me a visual ok before a jump.
- Stand on a trapeze bar whilst I rig the SL & bridle. One side of the trapeze bar could be unclipped by the 2nd person once I am ready to go.

Keeping the thoughts flowing please.

I have a lot of static line jumps (cue VID666)
but only very limited slackline experience...
as in after partying with Bryan & Svin where
I need them as training wheels, ha ha,
nonetheless here are my questions/thoughts:

What is your lowest jump to date? This LZ?
My point being if this LZ is chill and you've
already done a few sub-200 SL jumps then
this plan sounds much more reasonable.

As for the pin route and break cord setup:

Can you walk to the middle and hop off?
IF yes with 80% or more confidence then
I would route the pins normally and do it.

If you plan to exit hanging then I would
route the pins for a HH, as Svin said, out
the middle, bottom pin, then top pin.

I would use two carabiners:
A) larks head a rubber band (like you do
on a D-bag) and put a bight of PC in it.
B) put an over-hand knot in the bridle
somewhere in the middle and attach it
to the biner with 2 pieces of break cord.

As you walk out on the line the order of
procession would be: Jumper followed
by B followed by A.

Side Note for newbies: the pieces of break
cord can be strands or loops, doesn't matter,
but you NEVER want them the same length,
as in the primary should release first and
then the secondary/redundant piece breaks.

I personally believe if you practice this a few
times in your yard/park/garage/loft then you
should be able to perform this stunt solo and
without a trapeze bar or extra helper.

Hi Green Machine,

I mentioned 180ft not because I have specific location in mind, but because I want to work out a setup for doing a SL. There are quite a few locations I could jump, at the moment I am just working out the logistics.

Also, I am not a slackliner, so I would have to go out to the middle already suspended.

As mentioned I would bungee the PC, but only once I am in place, so that I don't accidently pop the pins. I would remain secured by harness until the SL and PC bungee attachments were secured. I would also practice this at ground level first a few times.

harness..sling...carabiners....do what douggs and em did to the great hole....then tie off...hold onto the line...unclip..and just fall away like your doing a s/l out an airplane..however..if you do screw up your setup..or get something around something else while your doing anything...your probably dead..def doable just dont make any mistakes

I'd be concerned about the snap back the slackline would have after you let go breaking the static line prematurely. They have a lot of energy built up, and it doesn't take much force to break the static line under a dynamic environment (which is exactly what you'd be static lining off of) It'd be complex if you aren't a rigger but i think the safer bet would be to rig it with a freebag instead. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idSokAaz0_A
Thats exactly what were using for the system were working on here. Then you could get out on the line, clip the bridle to the line with a biner, disconnect the climbing harness and let go. No chance of anything breaking prematurely.

Freebag/D-Bag is a pretty cool idea I think.

If you could suspend the bag on the left and right sides. You are clipped into the slackline in between the two connection points of the D-bag. set everything up with a riser over either shoulder in front of you. Unclip from the slackline.. hang from your arms with everything in your site the whole time. Let er' rip. Seems like a cool idea.

Kind of the idea I am thinking...and what I think ineed2fly was saying??

http://youtu.be/JMM6Sk6R4V8

Only.. instead of "cutting away" from the slackline just hang from your hands and release.

I think you are over thinking it. A simpler solution, since you still have to reach the exit point is to have the canopy packed in a freebag(sleeve) in your regular container, and have the bridle with pins/shrivel still closing it, but the end of the bridle that usually attaches to your canopy gets attached to your freebag. Basically, the same way we do SLs from an airplane where the canopy gets extracted from the freebag right after bridle stretch.

Otherwise how the hell will you rig all this up when you are at the halfway point of the slackline ?

Vid666, thats exactly what I meant, watch the video link i posted, but would be difficult to do if you aren't a rigger/dont want to pay out the ass to have something custom built. You probably could rig something up with a standard base direct bag and some pulleys so you could just roll out to the middle hanging from the bag. Either way its a pain in the ass.

But on that note if you wanted a free bag that packed inside your container like that (sort of like a sky reserve) I could build one for yah

I personally have never setup/used/seen a direct bag system in person, but I have pretty strong idea of how it looks/works.

My thought for getting it all out on the line is pretty simple. Pack the canopy in the bag, put on climbing harness and then rig. Hold the bag in front of you, risers will be hanging in front of course. With the bag facing away from you (canopy opening where you are looking...on heading), clip the left side of the bag to the slackline, then clip yourself to the slackline, and then the right side of the bag to the line.

Pull yourself out to the middle of the line. Once in the middle make sure everything is strait and pretty. Unclip yourself from the line and drop away.

http://www.basejumper.com/...nt;postatt_id=46430;

Here is an old photo posted by NickDG in an older forum. Just a photo of a direct bag ready to go. Use the exact same setup only the bag will be in front of you. Clip the bag into the slackline by the left and right handles. Jumper clips in between the two and ferries out to the exit.

Dumb??

I think its definitely possible, but a free bag sleeve packed inside the container would be simpler/easier.

What if the Mexican lets go?

I had to read the referenced post twice to find it, but it's there! I like it.

~ Chris

Just an obvious and a humble thought (I'm a slickliner and base jumper, but not both in the same time) : when looking at the video of Julien Millot and Tancrede Melet, one big issue in highline jumps simply seems to be which SIDE of the highline you may fall, and according to them, this sounds quite tough to deal with and implies great prudence.

Be safe.

keep in mind with a longline if you're using milspec webbing the sag in the middle will be quite big. unless you buy low-elasticity webbing (about .90/ft) the sag will definitely drop you down below the setup point enough to make the deployment more sketchy.

IDEA: if you're not going to walk the slackline out then why not use a static rope -just a regular tyrolean traverse. no need for pulleys to set the tension like with slacklines because you can set the tension with a 1:1 by hand.

that is my concern about a packed rig, canopy in a sleeve, using the bridle to s/l. a D-bag attached at both sides would be better. I assume the slackline spans a narrow gap, thus 2 words pop into my head.

Directional Control.

the bridle option offers virtually none.

Just as much direction control as a PCA or freefall base jump.

s/l, while rather reliable, still can suffer from off-headings. they seem harmless when jumping from an A, especially a freestander with a nice tailwind.

jumping in a gap between 2 cliff faces strikes me as potentially desiring a tad more heading control. but that's just me. YMMV.

Hi,
Just want to clear a few things up here.... first of all, why a slackline? You say that you are not a slackliner, so I'm wondering what the appeal is. Secondly, why static-line? You mentioned that you have multiple possibilities for exit points, but you want to do a low S/L from a slackline, with no experience? These things are really technical. (The last one I did tried to kill me... :)) I'm wondering, with your climbing skills, why you wouldn't just use a static-rope tyrolean as an exit-point instead, or are you simply trying to get some kind of a first? Yes, it is possible, but slacklines are inherently bouncy, making for a rather unstable tie-off. (Lots of potential for premature breakage, fun and exciting bridle wraps, etc) If you aren't even going to use the slackline, and just need to span some sort of gap, you can easily build a much more stable platform to exit from, with less drama. Good luck!

whoops, beat me to it.... I like the way you think. :)

I would really work on getting the slackline down. It will take a while and you sure dont' want to get off balance 3ft from the edge, get wobbly and peel off and knock yourself out 5ft from the edge of a structure or cliff. I climb to and they do not correlate, you will fall a lot. Climbing doesn't help slack lining but slack lining helps climbing. Gibbon makes a stronger line (thats better than the regular .30 cents a foot 4000lb test lines) that you can buy at gear shops. I would recommend that. 20-30 ft works well with the regular 1in tubular webbing anything after that and it stretches real bad so when you get to the center is damn near impossible(well for me anyways). Always have a backup rope taped under the line with tension just in case your rigging snaps.

Good luck!


Good luck!