Check your safety and lifting gear regularly

Check your safety and lifting gear regularly

Checking through my safety gear, when I had the life sling out of the pack I noticed some rusty discoloration on the material ends.  I rotated the rings in the material of the sling ends and discovered one ring was suffering crevice corrosion. This would explain the rust marks on the material. After closer inspection of the ring I could see that it was no longer safe to use as a rescue/lifting device. This has happened in just a year. The warmer and more humid tropical climate certainly accelerates corrosion.  It’s well worth while checking all stainless rings or “D” loops by rotating them regurally. We have several safety devices with stainless rings, eg life jackets, boson’s chair, harnesses and we will now decrease the time between inspections. 

Rings after they were cut out of the sling material ends, the exposed part of the ring looked ok

Closer inspection of one ring shows how close it was to failure.