After spending a good three hours threading one slackline inside another, the natural tendency is to want to rig that line with as much tension as it can take!
Threaded tubular is fast becoming one of the juiciest lines to slack on, and with one of my friend’s homemade batch ready to go, we took it out to the park and began setting it up.

UK Collective Park Session

The inner line, 11/16 (‘ths of an inch) was in good condition, in a sexy turquoise colour. The outer line, 1 inch climbing spec tubular, however, was a couple of years old. Attaching the line to our 5:1 pulley system, 2 friends of mine began rigging over a 13-14m distance. Just as the tension was becoming too hard for 2 guys to pull (with one multiplier) I heard what sounded like static electricity – crackling noises coming from the line. Immediately my instinct was that it was due to a line fault, and I shouted over “Watch out! The line is going to snap!”. Lo and behold a second or two later, and BANG! The red tubular had snapped, leaving only the turquoise inner line behind.

Red line snapper!

It was very fortunate that no one was injured, and that only one of the lines broke.
The lesson here is to always check your webbing for knicks / snags / general wear’n'tear!

We obviously hadn’t checked it well enough, and just assumed webbing that had been slacked on for two years with no problems, was a good choice to use for a threaded tubular experiment. Wrong!
It was pretty crazy – the friction from the snappage had melted the red tubular to the turquoise stuff! Good job that was all.

Just wanted to share that little episode with you, especially if you’re thinking of making your own threaded tubular slackline at home.

Rig safe slackers!

@harrycloudfoot