Defending Dynaglide from the Garda Hitch?

[designerider]

Iv'e been reading a lot here about suspensions over the last few days. I had never heard of the garda hitch before, but it almost looks like the perfect setup for me with the exception of the potential wear that it puts on amsteel. I was wondering if anyone has tried hanging from dynaglide and threading a short section of amsteel onto it that could be slid up to the double rings. Would the amsteel (which could easily be replaced if it appeared too worn) be enough to protect the dynaglide. Would the dynaglide simply slip through the amsteel and garda all at once? Would the buried section be too stiff to effectively do a garda hitch at all? I'm sure someone else here has tried this in the past, but searching for what have become such generic terms as "garda" and "amsteel" haven't gotten me the post I'm looking for. Any advice would be much appreciated!

[pgibson]

NO!

The Garda hitch is not in any way recommended to be used with lines like amsteel and Dynaglide. These types of ropes suffer from the compression forces of the rings clamping down significantly weakening the rope. Putting a cover of the same basic stuff over it will not help enough and would only be adding weight to a system doomed to fail. And to top it off there is no way of knowing when or where it will fail.....3 am 1 miles down the trail...broken tail bone landing on that one little rock...or could it be that time you offer the wife/girl friend or perhaps your boss try out your hammock...or maybe...well you get the point...The Garda hitch was decided some time back to not be a good option there are many other methods of suspension that are much better, lighter and just as easy.

My fairly educated on the subject of suspension systems 2 cents.

[AaronAlso]

You can use 3/8th" polyester webbing in the garda hitch set-up. It has a breaking strength of 1500lbs and I have successfully supported 300lbs from it.

WARNING: Don't tie knots in 3/8th inch webbing it will break at the knots everytime.

I agree with Paul though, the Garda hitch setup isn't at all ideal. I always recommend the All-inOne Whoopie sling from whoopieslings.com


^^ Here is 3/8th" polyester webbing in a garda hitch configuration


^^ Here is the loop I tied in the webbing that eventually broke at the knot.

[Mouseskowitz]

The garda hitch has fallen out of favor for good reason. A rope rescue book I was reading only gave it a 220lb load limit and recommended not to use anything smaller than 8 or 11mm rope, can't remember which. If you want to stick with rings I would go with a cinch buckle setup with 1" webbing.