Redundancy or Redumbancy?

Originally published in Instructional Canyoneering Resource on 5/23/2023

The subject of redundancy is something that plagues canyoneering instruction.

On the one hand, redundancy is a key concept to understand to mitigate canyoneering risks in areas like:

• Marginal anchors

• Sharp edges

• Overloading a system

• Inexperience

On the other hand, the concept of redundancy takes off in an irrational way and starts to consume students and practitioners in all sorts of uneserary ways.

It is a somewhat complex subject to discuss because redundancy seems to be connected to fear of "what if" in situations that we do not fully understand.

This subject was brought up by group contributor Brent Roth. Thanks Brent Roth!

The following paragraphs are part of a conversation that we had some time ago.

Brent:

Redundancy is based on a belief system. I say this because if we knew something was going to fail we would fix it. When we don’t know that something will fail but believe it could be when redundancy comes into play. Since redundancy is based on a belief system, it is very hard to change how we feel about it and accept other ideas. Like politics and religion, our personal beliefs are based on many things including how much we know about something. The less we know and understand and the more we buy into “what if”, the more redundancy we think we need. Some organizations make redundancy a requirement. You could say these are the churches. It is your choice to belong to a church or not. Your choice may be based on getting a paycheck, so own it. Understand why it is and don’t think a different belief is wrong just because it is not yours. Sometimes redundancy in a system without thought or reason is something I like to call “redumbdancy”.

Adolfo:

You are definitely onto a subject that has been very difficult to debunk. Irrational redundancy.

• Backup knots on long figure 8 tails, or on ring-bends, or on double-fishermans....

• Two 30kN rappel rings on a rappel master point....

• Two 4000 lbs strands of webbing around a tree...

• Doubled rappel extensions…

• The list of irrational "just in case", or "why not?" goes on...

WHAT DOES IT HURT?

In previous discussions, online and with actual partners, the interesting aspect of this discussion emerges: What does it hurt?

Let the person spend some time putting those little backup knots....it is a "warm fuzzy" false sense of security.

The best answer that I've been able to offer so far is that it does not hurt anything unless....you venture into teaching someone else.

Then these practices spread like cancer of irrationality :)
And often, at the expense of more pressing risk-management issues.

But it is very difficult to fight it...for the most part it is annoying busy work.

Specifically for canyoneering, and maybe other outdoors activities involving medium to high risk, the problem from the "teaching" perspective is "time constraint".

The one day classes, workshops are just not enough to cover that Cognitive Domain Pyramid.

But for sure...this should be the goal, not memorized rules that result in something like this photo:

Redundancy from harness to rap device...but no helmet :(