from Hacker News

A History of Tug-Of-War Fatalities (2014)

by FuNe on 3/20/17, 10:30 AM with 20 comments

  • by logicallee on 3/21/17, 6:18 AM

    >2,300 students ... The rope, provided by Pennsylvania Power and Light Co., had been intended for use in heavy construction, and was rated to withstand 13,000 pounds of stress.

    What's astounding is that at least in this case simple arithmetic could have shown it was unsuitable - since 13,000 / 2,300 is just 5.6 pounds - a force any below-average middle schooler can obviously exert at least briefly (being well under 10% of their body weight and for reference the weight of less than two stacked 13-inch Macbook Pro notebooks[1] -- which would weigh 6 pounds. A gallon of milk weighs 8.6 pounds.) It could have been expected that perhaps every one of those students would exert it continuously through the whole contest to say nothing of their maximum extra effort on top of it.

    While 13,000 pounds is very strong - a full 6.5 tons - it sounds like a simple arithmetic check could have saved the disaster mentioned in the write-up. The lesson - or at least one lesson - is, never feel above a simple calculation.

    [1] https://s.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/10/dsc0890...

  • by cel1ne on 3/21/17, 7:11 AM

    Something I learned in climbing: Never ever put your hand or finger in a hook or loop or similar.

    It feels natural to do so, when standing on a ladder for example, but you can easily lose it.

  • by pilom on 3/21/17, 4:08 AM

    Random bit of information cluttering my brain. When playing tug of war, hold the rope with your thumbs pointed towards yourself. A trained professional can usually pull about 0.8-1.0x their body weight that way vs. about .5-.7x with thumbs away. Looped around a waist and​ the same person can get up to about 1.0-1.5x with cleats on turf. Obviously there is lots of variance for type and thickness of rope as well as footwear and surface but the general principal stands, hold the rope thumbs towards yourself. Source: I studied thrown rope rescues in swift water situations.

  • by scott_s on 3/21/17, 1:49 PM

    The xkcd What If? on tug-of-war is also interesting: https://what-if.xkcd.com/127/

  • by Animats on 3/21/17, 4:34 AM

    The Caterpillar version: [1]

    [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS9D1VqBcmI

  • by throwaywgsid on 3/21/17, 6:50 AM

    A footnote of history, but fraternities were once known for intense competition and a yearly tug of war between houses was common. Part of the history of tug of war I guess?

    Anyways, my school is one of the few left which still honors the tradition http://huskiesifc.org/the_site/?page_id=45

    The fraternities train like hell for months, it's the real deal.

    If you want to see one hell of a tug of war look up "NIU tugs" on youtube.

    The really old pictures show it was traditional done over stream so the losers get soaked. Now it's done on dry ground but it's still just as serious. The ropes and other equipment we used likely dated back to the 60's or earlier. The rope was so huge...Maybe 5 inches... It was definitely made for boat anchors

  • by dang on 3/21/17, 4:15 AM