Catastrophic failure tested

Both the main and backup snapped while two of my friends were tandem highlining on it. Elliot Kirk fell into a tree was fine-ish and Paul Hahler hit the rock slab and somehow is fine-ish with only a broken heel. Two very very very unlikely things happened: 1) a catastrophic failure 2) everyone was fine!?!?

So what happened? Lets start with facts and work our way down to opinion.

FACTS: It was moonwalk webbing on both the main and backup, not made at the same time. 4 sections were lableled and sent to me and I broke the main and backup of each section 3x each, in weblock 3.0s, double wrapped, and pulled at approximately 1” per sec or 1400mm per min. I believe my load cell to be accurate and it was the same load cell for all the tests. Here are the results in kN:
Section 1 - Main: 12.32, 11.53, 12.43 Backup: 9.24, 10.53, 9.39
Section 2 - Main 26.09, 29.69, 25.07 Backup 19.29, 18.29, 22.33
Section 3 - Main 28.61, 29.64, 25.37 Backup 22.65, 24.88, 24.25
Section 4 - Main 29.32, 29.90, 31.29 Backup 27.05, 24.83, 25.19

SUMMARY:
*1 section broke significantly lower than the other 3 sections
*The main in all the tests broke higher than the backup
*All the sections looked equally faded

OPINION:
Everything else is opinion. Please be self aware of how our pattern seeking monkey brains work. BAD BATCH! Meh… there were two batches. TOO FADED! Meh… it was all faded. BAD STORAGE! Meh… that’s hard to believe. PERMA-RIGGED TOO LONG! Meh… no section was outside longer than socially accepable or longer than according to ISA recommendations. TANDEM HIGHLINING IS BAD! Meh… it’s not, you just might be bad at it.

FEELINGS:
If you are apart of this community and know anyone involved, it is likely you have feelings. Relief, fear, sadness, guilt, anger, rage, confusion, etc. That’s ok. It’s how you manage those feelings that matter. We sleep better at night feeling like we know all the answers to something. We don’t and won’t, so it’s better to accept that than be in denial. We walk through the sky and “inherent risks” aren’t just a CYA label on gear. It’s just how the game works. Be as safe as you can be, hug your friends, and be kind.

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