Posts by roryalsop
Miguelmorin's answer is very comprehensive, and if you do want to make a repair, I would definitely recommend following his guidance, however: Your leash can be the difference between life and dea...
In the Falklands, because the water is so cold as it comes up off the Antarctic peninsula, I always wore 6mm wetsuits even for kayaking. The two solutions we used were: talc. Yes, it gets wet, bu...
My only concerns would be around its tear resistance (in case of rubbing against a sharp bit of the tree) and bend radius. If those are appropriate, then it should work as a sling. Be aware that ...
Mt Elias isn't even in the top ten for number of deaths. It comes in in 24th place according to https://www.shughal.com/25-of-the-deadliest-mountains-in-the-world/ with Everest at number 1. This si...
The abilities required are developed through practice and mostly focus on three areas: increasing the oxygenation capability of the body retraining autonomic apnoea responses minimising the metab...
As you mentioned, a vertical sail gives you more power, so where possible that should be your goal, but the drag caused when heeling is enough that for most catamarans you want to minimise it as mu...
If your concern is regarding broaching, then the two actions you take are: allow the head to come towards the wind, reducing the sideways force. This can be instant. if needed, slacken the main, ...
Early ice-yachting was done with converted boats, but that is rare now. There is a class designed for unstable ice that can sail in water if needed, and in the Netherlands blades are still added t...
If you know exactly where your bindings need to be fixed then you don't need the demo plate, and fixing directly to the ski gives a more rigid connection between boot and ski. A demo plate is only...
Dyneema is the most hard wearing, however if you need it to run through any friction grip or clutch it is not a good choice as it is very smooth and shiny. Polyester really is the cost-effective, ...
While a close-reach or beam-reach is going to give the vessel the highest speed through the water, this may not be what you want. Being close-hauled will point you higher so while you lose speed, t...
From the coasteering excursions I and my family have been on in Scotland, the rest of the UK and some other European countries, there appears to be no consistent grading. What I have seen is use o...
This one is actually much simpler than you might realise: On a three feathered arrow, the nock is at 90 degrees to one feather, and at 30 degrees to the other two feathers. If the cock feather wa...
This is all information you can get from a plethora of online sources, but from a quick 2 minutes I found this: for Grenoble, a 20cm snowfall is a high average. Temperature change between day and...
According to what I can find on Wikipedia and elsewhere, it looks like it was in the 1880s. Before that, bolts had been used as climbing aids. Best candidate for first climber and route is W.P. Ha...
I have a few colleagues who have done this, and one team who did it with a colleague in a wheelchair. They are all reasonably fit, but the day job is desk-based, so if you have managed Kili easily,...
Randall Munroe has the single best article on this I have ever seen, over on his What-If site where he discusses what would happen if all the water in a cloud formed one giant raindrop. I recommen...
Firstly there's the weight issue - as Paparazzi commented, batteries are heavy! Then there's temperature - battery performance drops considerably in the cold And finally reliability - if your elec...
If we exclude the birdwatching explanation Shem gives, the only possible ecological reason for a bird feeder is to counteract the negative effect we have on the bird's habitat by having our house t...
Like many prey animals, vision is optimised to detect danger coming from anywhere. They can see you with one eye very easily, and their reflexes are on a hair-trigger to take them away from incomin...
Condensation is usually caused by high humidity combined with a temperature differential. It sounds like you have a very humid atmosphere, which in a tent is added to by the high moisture content o...
I have always taught sailing students to run a full check every time they rig the boat (if it's a dinghy or the mast is regularly lowered) or annually before returning it to the water after winter....
Always check used wetsuits for wear, especially around seams, under arms, between the legs, and the seat. These areas typically wear through fastest, and although they are often strongest (extra st...
One aspect not yet touched on is that for beginner climbers, upper body strength is not actually as important as you might imagine. If we exclude overhangs (which is reasonable for early stages of ...
The three risks that are relevant here are the risk of fire, suffocation and carbon monoxide poisoning I'll take suffocation first. A gas leak can exclude oxygen to the point that you can no longe...
