One of the advantages of being a float officer is that in my travels I get to see a lot of different apparatus set ups. Some things that I see are downright ingenious, while others leave me with a sense of wonder. Something along the lines of “I wonder who the idiot was that though that up?".
A recent trend that I have noticed, and feel compelled to speak out against is the tying off of the halyard when stowing ladders in a "slide out" stowage system. It seems that someone is selling (and a lot of people are buying) that the halyard should only be tied off to the rung of the bed section of the ladder. While I understand that such a set up removes one step in throwing of the ladder, thus making for quicker deployment, it also creates a potential on-scene pitfall that far outweighs the benefit (perceived or real).
When you tie off the ladder as described instead of tying off abound both rungs the fly section often slides during transport or when deployed by an overly excited recruit at their first fire. This sliding fly section makes the entire halyard go slack. On several occasions, I have seen halyards become entangled in other ladders, waterway piping, and even bind against its own bed section. The end result is a ladder that is undeployable on the scene. It may even hamper the deployment of other ladders in the stowage compartment. I have personally shoved at no less than three Smots (smallest man on the shift) into the rear compartment of the tower to untangle halyards. The Smots usually don’t come out happy or clean. But we big men all have a good laugh while they’re in there, and even better when they emerge hunched over like some angry troll from beneath a bridge.
Many of us have scratched our heads for hours trying to streamline our operations. However, when trying something new, we need to fully think through the unintended consequence of change.
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