A Petzl Stop is a

descender In typography and handwriting, a descender is the portion of a letter that extends below the baseline of a font. For example, in the letter ''y'', the descender is the "tail", or that portion of the diagonal line which lies below the ''v'' c ...

used primarily in

caving Caving – also known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland – is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology i ...

and formerly used for industrial rope access made by the French company

Petzl Petzl is a French manufacturer of climbing gear, caving gear, work-at-height equipment, and headlamps based in Crolles (near Grenoble), France. The company was created by the cave explorer Fernand Petzl in the mid-1970s. Their three specialtie ...

Usage

The Stop is for use with single low stretch kernmantle ropes and is usually attached to the harness via a

carabiner A carabiner or karabiner () is a specialized type of shackle, a metal loop with a spring-loaded gate used to quickly and reversibly connect components, most notably in safety-critical systems. The word is a shortened form of ''Karabinerhaken' ...

. The rope is then threaded through the cam and bobbin by undoing the safety clip and moving the swinging side plate to the side. The swinging side plate facilitates insertion and removal of the rope without the need to disconnect it from the harness, making it less likely to be dropped while inserting and removing the rope from the Stop while at height. As the Stop is a self-braking descender, an unintentional release of the deadman's handle should stop the descent, due to the asymmetric lower cam crimping the rope. This functionality safeguards the user in the event of being knocked unconscious due to a rockfall or illness, though the fine control of rate of descent should be carried out by standard method of manually controlling friction with the hand on the rope below the descender. A simpler version of the bobbin descender, without the stop handle, is also available.

Versions

Original Version

* Rope compatibility: 9 to 12 mm low stretch kernmantle rope * Replaceable aluminium bobbins (main bobbin with stainless insert) * Carabiner slot that can accept normal carabiners and Petzl Freino braking carabiner * Short non folding deadman's handle made from metal with red plastic cover

2019 Version

The Stop was updated for sale in 2019 replacing the original version. Changes to the design including updates to the dead man's handle, the bobbins and the carabiner slot. This version also saw Petzl shift the intended use of the Stop to recreational only use. The 2019 version of the Stop is no longer certified for Industrial use and Petzl now sell products such as the Petzl Rig and Petzl I'D S for Industrial use instead. * Rope compatibility: 8.5 to 11 mm low stretch kernmantle rope * Fixed stainless steel bobbins * Wider carabiner slot to allow Petzl Freino Z braking carabiner to be rotated through it to reduce the chances of being drop when clipping between a gear loop and harness abseil point * Redesigned deadman's mans handle using a black plastic folding handle longer than the original non folding one and providing leverage

Standards

Original Version

* EN 341 class A * CE 0197

2019 Version

* CE EN 15151-1, UKCA

References

{{reflist Caving equipment