Interesting gear challenge
I do canoe and gear rescue from snags for a Florida canoe outfitter in their flood conditions. I would like the ability to ascend and descend without switching devices and am pretty strongly considering a Taz Lov3 because something like an akimbo or zigzag style device could easily be hit by debris releasing my hold and possibly triggering an uncontrolled descent into a snag. It’s possible to freehand ascend/descend in the current but it’s not possible to swim against it (5mph/8kmh approx. may be underestimating a bit but it’s not hard to climb the rope) so I need a rope to get back to the boat instead of climbing up onto the snag climbing to shore and looping upstream to the boat along potentially unfriendly banks. Especially if I just freed the boat and it’s headed downstream! lol. Pulling the canoe out to shore is almost never feasible so I often anchor the boat to an upstream snag and rope down.
I hit up the HN2 discord and the Taz seems to be the only solution beyond freehanding the rope with maybe a prussik to hold position (what I’ve always done in the past! Maybe call me crazy canoe? LMAO) but an ability to hold myself at a point and work on freeing the stuck canoe would be amazing. I’m thinking this would be similar to going down in a waterfall to help a stuck customer and needing to ascend back up to get the rest down. I could switch devices sometimes but the ability to do it without switching would be the main selling point for me beyond it holding in the current. Any other devices I should be considering or if I do get the Lov3 any rope recommendations for wet use in it?
This is the only group beyond rope access and cavers I could think of that would have relevant opinions. Should I be asking them or is there a rescue subreddit that would be relevant?
TLDR want a way to ascend/descend/hold along a rope (recommendations) in a flooded Florida blackwater river that doesn’t have the crazy high risk of debris triggering a device release ala zigzag/akimbo.