Mechanical Advantage Option for Elk hunting

[J. Holden]

I didn't want to hijack Joebuck's thread so hope you see this Joe!

Being a fireman has it's advantages.  Besides the schedule you learn stuff that you probably would not have learned without the knowledge of those that have gone before you.  One of those lessons is related to rope and technical rescue.

In one of those drills I was taught how to make a 2 to 1, 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 without pullys and such.  For those that are unaware and 2 to 1 mechanical advantage cuts the weight being pulled in half.  A 3 to 1 cuts the weight in thirds, so on and so forth.

I took some pictures this afternoon after reading Joebucks post.  I'm going to attempt to post them and describe what we're showing.

In this first picture I'm showing you need to find an anchor.  A large tree, the base of a rock or boulder, a vehicle.  Basically something large and immovable.

The next two pictures show me tying a knot near the anchor point.  A simple loop in the line will work.  Make a loop, and then run it back through itself.  Keep in mind a loop and then a caribeener would work just the same and save your rope.  

Now the rope is run to your kill, in this case our brush truck hitch.

A loop will need to be tied into the rope once it has been wrapped around your kill.  The rope is then run back towards your anchor and though the first loop.  Run the rope back towards your kill and run it through your second loop.

Here's a shot of it all tied together.  

I hope this makes sense.  A few words of caution, you will need to re-adjust as you move your object.  You will run out of rope as you pull.  You may want to have something ready to secure the load while you re-adjust your anchor's and tying points.  You will also want to make sure your rope is rated accordingly.  The rope may also break down while being pulled against itself.  Once it's used it will need to be serviced or replaced.  PLEASE DON'T USE FOR LIFE SAFETY IF IT'S NOT RATED FOR IT OR IF IT'S BEEN USED UNDER A LOAD!

Hope this helps some one.  Good hunting everyone!

-Jeremy  

[J. Holden]

Sorry about those photo's sideways.  I tried re-adjusting them and Photbucket doesn't seem to be cooperating.  Sorry about that.

-Jeremy  

[Easykeeper]

Great information, thanks for posting...  

[Homebru]

And I thought I would need pulleys.  Nice post.  Thanks,
homebru

[Michael Pfander]

One thing you want to remember about this is that you can break your line.  The wear on the loops can do it or you can exceed the strength of the line itself.
MAP

[S. Brant Osborn]

Jeremy
I work at a large paper mill where a number of people from each shift make up the emergency response team.  I am one of those people.  Part of our duties is rope rescue.  Next week we will be going through our refresher training on that subject and will be spending a considerable amount of time studying mechanical advantage.  When I first learned them I was amazed how often I could use them Here arround the farm.

Nice examples.  Thanks
Brant

[J. Holden]

It is nice to have a little trick up the sleeve to work smarter not harder isn't it Brant?

And as stated above this should be used for a kill and moving it.  The rope rubbing on itself could possibly cause the rope to break down and break.  one way to avoid this happening would be running the rope through a caribeener that would be attached to the loop.

As I said, PLEASE do not use this as a LIFE SAFETY option.  Whatever is being pulled should be allowed to break free and fall, roll, what have with out worry.

-Jeremy  

[Sharpend60]

The use of pulleys or at least biners would dramatically increase the effectiveness of this rig.

The friction of rope on rope is huge, decreasing your mechanical advantage by a wide margin.

There are loads of light, inexpensive pulleys on the market.

[Sharpend60]

Also remember as your ratio increases your length of pull deceases at a proportional rate.

One other thing, when you pull whatever to where ever. You may need to tie it off.
Use a 'Munter Mule' for this.
It can be untied while loaded and tied with one hand. It is essential in high angle rescue.

[Sharpend60]

One last thing...

Use high quality 'kern mantle' static line.

Kern- is a tightly woven protective sheath over the mantle- the core of the rope.
Static line has no to very little stretch.

550 line is built like this, except that is stretches a ton. You will have to tug and tug only to stretch your rope and move your object no where.

The abrasion resistance is far superior and slicker in kern mantle ropes, reducing friction. 5mm-7mm aught to serve just fine. There is plenty of 3mm cord that is lighter but becomes difficult to tie/untie, unless your an ace with knot craft.

Sold as climbing accessory cord or cordellete.

[S. Brant Osborn]

Great tips

[AkDan]

that is pretty skookum!   Now if i can only remmeber it once I put a moose in the drink (its inevtiably going to happen at some point lol).

How about the 3-1 and 4-1 methods?  I'm assuming thats just more loops?

[Cari-bow]

AkDan
Here is a method that was used to pull moose out of the water by the old timers. You don't need any more rope then from the animal to the anchor. Which can be a big advantage in some cases. I will attach a poor diagram. The mechanical advantage comes from the lever,the longer the bigger the advantage. I pulled my quad across the lawn with the brakes on with a 2 ft lever without a problem.
 

[Cari-bow]

AkDan
You are winding the rope around the log. With static rope that Joebuck describe 5mm and tensile strength of 5000 lbs. ,a very compact package. There are other ways of setting this up. One can use just one tree as the anchor but would need some pieces of rope instead of the cross members.
Abe

[stykbow67]

Poor mans winch right there! I like it!! sometimes it's just the simpleist things we DON'T think of, Thanks for sharing!

Steve

[Sharpend60]

Nice Cari-Bow!

Im gonna remember that one.

[J. Holden]

That's another great "tool in the tool box" right there!  Thank you for sharing.

-Jeremy  

[jhg]

To secure the load between hauls use a self tending prussic attached to the same/near anchor point and a static prussic on the line instead of the half hitch, which will be a bear to untie after its been loaded.
Buy 4 locking cararbiners too and you will be a lot better off.
The problem not using them is the friction on the rope to rope wil weaken and burn the rope sheath which is often a structural part of the rope.
Go to "swiftwater r escue" and I am sure they will have drawings of a 2 or 3 to one mechanical using what I described. I learned it from them when I got my certification in SWR.
The self tending prussic is awesome to know.
It allows one guy to do almost anything with rope.
Joshua

[COOCH]

This is one of my favorite tricks when working on elk.It's kind of tough to see the rope but here it is in a practical application.

 

[J. Holden]

That's what I'm talking about!  Thanks for sharing your pic.  Nice cow elk.

-Jeremy