Highline Anchor with Static Rope

Is static rope the right thing to use for a highline anchor? How do you rig a highline anchor with static rope? Check it out in this episode of how not to highline. Hi guys, I'm Ryan Jinks and welcome to my garage. Today we're going to show you how to rig a highline anchor with static rope and talk about the pros and cons and discuss the potential dangers you need to look out for. Okay, let's talk about what kind of static rope I'm going to use in this video. I have here an 8 millimeter by 30 foot long piece of static rope. You could use a 9, 10 or even a beefy 11 mil static rope, but you already have the safety ratios you need with an 8 mil static rope when you put a four point sliding X in it, theoretically giving you four times the strength. I have two types of 8 mil static rope here. This is a nylon core with a nylon sheath, which is rated for 3,500 pounds of force or 15 kilonewtons. But this is a extreme canyoneering rope with a Technora sheath and a Dyneema core. Dyneema is the same thing Amsteel is made out of. It's extremely strong and is rated at 24 kilonewtons or 5,400 pounds of force. By the time you're done rigging a four point sliding X with this guy, you could have in theory four times the strength of this rope. Now the thicker rope's advantage is that it's more abrasion resistant, but either way you have to pad your highline. So this is going to give me plenty of strength for what I'm doing and this is what I'm going to use in this video. Warning, do not rig a depth triangle. This is not how you build a highline anchor. It does not pull on all four bolts evenly and the way it pulls inward on these increases the load on these outside bolts substantially. This could kill you. So let's pull on all four bolts evenly, called equalizing. You start by putting the static rope through all four bolts, assuming that they're gluons. After leaving some tail fear knot, grab the rope between each bolt and pull it towards the master point. Then tie a double, triple, or even a quadruple fisherman's knot. I have found that a quadruple fisherman's knot has been easier to untie than a double. A fisherman's knot is essentially two stopper knots stopping each other. We will be showing you how to do this in more detail. Move the knot up closer to a bolt and away from the master point so it doesn't get in the way of equalizing. After each bolt is being pulled on evenly, give a half twist in the rope that connects the two far bolts to keep the weblock sitting flat. Finally, adjust it in the direction of the highline. Okay, let's talk about the fisherman's knot. Essentially, it is a stopper knot that you would build for a rappel, where you go up the rope and then down that hole, and this stops you from rappelling off the end of your rope. What you do is you do that on both ends of the rope, and then you pull them together and the two stopper knots stop each other. And that is called a fisherman's knot. It's very important to have a long enough tail, so I'm going to make sure I have enough tail here to build my knot. I go around my fingers. I cross over because I'm going to coil up the long end of the rope. That is a double fisherman, triple fisherman, or what I like to do is a quadruple fisherman. I find it to be a little easier to untie. Now, it wants to start to squish on itself. It's important to dress your knot. Make sure that all your coils there are nice and neat and parallel. Notice how long of a tail I have. Same thing over here, is I go across the strand and then coil up the long end of the rope. Triple, quadruple, stick it back down the hole there. And that sat nicely, so I'm just going to make sure I keep dressing it. Okay, so now I have my two stopper knots. You pull them together, twist them a little bit so that they cuddle nicely against each other. And then you pull all four strands and you make sure it's all tight. And that is your fisherman's knot. Let's talk about the difference between a four-point sliding X like we have here or doing a BFK, big ******* knot. The pros of a four-point sliding X is that it stays equalized all the time. It can slide in either direction, depending on where your high line goes. But the problem is, if a bolt were to blow like that, it would shock load, which is very bad because it puts a lot of force on the other three bolts, just like that. Let's show you how to set up a BFK. You grab all these strands here, you go up closer. I don't have enough rope to do a figure eight, so I'm just going to do an overhand knot. And you tie a big ******* knot. Now, the problem is my web lock and webbing would be rubbing on my cliff edge here. Since I have the luxury of moving my cliff edge, I'm going to. The pros and cons are opposite here. The con is that it doesn't equalize. If your high line were to go over a little bit more than you thought, it's now only pulling on this one bolt and not the others. But the positive is that if this bolt were to blow, it still doesn't go anywhere. And it does not add a shock load to those bolts. It's very important, regardless of what anchor you're using, whether or not it's a four-point sliding X, a BFK, or even a span set, that you have redundancy. Two options here that I'm showing are redundancy with whoopee slings, or just a nine-sixteenths webbing with a water knot. A whoopee sling has an eye that you can girth hitch into a glue-in bolt here. And it's very, very adjustable and pretty, pretty dang strong. You want it fairly loose until all the tension is put on the high line. And then after all the tension's there, you snug it up so there would be no shock loading. Another option is to use a nine-sixteenths webbing, such as this. And after the tension is put on your high line, so you can adjust exactly where you need it, you would install one of these. If you're using flat webbing, you'd do a water knot, basic simple knot. And then you trace it just like you would trace a knot when you tie into your high line. Follow the water knot, go around, and go inside. Now this is a lot harder to adjust. So I still have a little slack in here, and it's not nearly as strong as a whoopee sling. Whoopies have a lot more going for it than a nine-sixteenths webbing. And here's another way to add redundancy to your anchor. I have never added a BFK with a sliding X, but technically this would work. You have the equalization benefit, as long as this is technically loose. And you have the shock load prevention, which comes with the BFK here. This was kind of difficult to set up to get these both to be exactly where I wanted them to be. The BFK doesn't allow me to stretch out my 30-foot rope very well, and I've never seen this done before. But this is technically another way to make something redundant. The point is, don't have your highline anchor as just one unit. Have redundancy, whether or not it's adding a static rope, whoopee slings, another individual rope, or webbing. So let's go over how to rig a highline anchor with a static rope one more time. You run your rope through all four bolts. And this is my cliff edge, so I want my master point to be a little bit past my cliff edge, so no webbing is rubbing. I have enough tail to tie my knot. I go in between each bolt, and I pull the rope down. And right here, where these meet, is where I tie my knot. And we do with a double or triple or quadruple fisherman's, however much rope you have. I want enough tail, so I'm just doing triple right there. This side I have a lot, so I'll do a quadruple. Makes it a little bit easier to untie later. Pull that through. Keep the knot dressed. Make sure it looks like a fisherman's knot. And then, pull your two stopper knots together. Put your knot here. You don't want your knot near the cliff edge. It gets in the way of the master point. So I want it right there. I pull this here. I pull that there. And that's pretty good. This is okay where that's at. And then I just take this thing, because right now, this would be pulled sideways, and I want it to be flat. So what I do is, I turn this this way. And I just cockeyed a little. And that will allow it to stay flat. Now I'm not done. I need to add redundancy. So I'm going to girth hitch my whoopies through the eyes of the bolt. Now that I have my whoopies all together, you want to add two to that side, and two to this side. You have to make sure all the strands are in your shackle, or it's not part of your master point. Then add your favorite wet block. After you tension it, you can tighten up the whoopies. So there'll be no chance of a shock load. And that right there is a redundant highline anchor. Be sure to add padding. Be sure to be clipped in when you're working. And make sure that this point is after the cliff edge, if possible. Even though static ropes equalize well with a four-point sliding X, and you can't adjust where the master point goes, it does require a special knot, and it can shock load if you don't add a redundant backup to it. Since static ropes aren't perfect, therefore you shouldn't highline. Hi, I'm Ryan Jenks, and this was another episode of the How Not to Highline series. This is a guide for slackliners interested in transitioning into highlining. We are not here to spoon feed the right rigging techniques. We hope our lessons empower slackers to critically analyze any system they may use. Risk awareness can keep people alive. Please don't rig your first highline without an expert. We have too many wonderful and generous people in our highlining community to risk your life after watching YouTube tutorials. Let's keep this sport safe. And remember, since no system is perfect, therefore you shouldn't highline. Thanks for watching, and please subscribe.