I posted on my recent Cumberland Island trip report that I had a Dutch Clip failure the first night out. I finally had time tonight to post the picture of it. I think it was one of the original design DC's, as I compared it to another set I have and it's much smaller. I can only think that it must have gotten twisted a bit on the strap as others have reported having happened, although I tried to be careful in the setup.



I hike with engineering types, so it became a great topic of discussion as to why it failed. The general consensus was that it must have had a void somewhere in the material. It didn't turn out to be a big deal, since I brought a backup pair and one of the exact same spares worked fine for three nights. There was some laughter at my expense by the groundlings, but since it was cold and I was hanging low it was more of a surprise than anything else!

I'll probably get a couple more of the 2nd generation DC's from the Jack's and replace all of my old ones at some point. Note: this post was not meant to be a criticism of the manufacturing, as I have several of Dutch's designs and I find them all to be first quality. Things like this just happen and I'm sure it was a twist in the webbing that caused the extra torque on the Clip.

Sweeper