Carabiner anchor...
If you go to the carabiner you need to use cable...
- And we both know what can happen with cable.
- And that means you've got to have a lot of cable in the airflow because of the range of control movement between the carabiner and the downtube.
- And you won't trim as well with respect to control frame position and thus you'll have to hold some pressure on the bar when you're going up and you'll lose some upper speed range...
-- especially on a lower performance glider; and
-- who wants all that crap in the airflow on a higher performance glider?
I don't like anchoring at the carabiner.
If you tow one point you lose a lot of upper speed range no matter what you're flying and if you're hit by a strong thermal shortly after launch it could mean the difference between being able to ride it out and continue the tow and getting killed.
But that's a very small risk - zillions of people tow one point in really strong thermal conditions successfully all the time - and I think it can be managed by having ribbons along the runway.
And if I'm flying a demo glider I'll fly it one point rather than slapping a cable release onto it.
Do you consider there are enough benefits...
Ideally all gliders should come with built-in clean two point releases. Until that happens (don't hold your breath)...
I'd fly one point with a barrel on the left for normal use and the Four-String on the right for emergency.
Next choice would be a regular barrel and a remote.
Then a barrel and a Linknife.
Then a barrel and a Russian bite controlled release.
The Russian goes last because it's a bit clunky and I'm probably never going to be in a situation in which I need an emergency release.
Remote Barrel downsides...
Keel mounted - none.
Shoulder mounted...
The Four-String is really cool because once it's armed it's self powered. If a situation starts looking bad you can give a light tug to disengage the Trigger Line from the Clamcleat and then - if it becomes necessary - just relax your bite and you're gone. It doesn't get any better than that.
And if you don't have any warning - a very light tug and let go.
Its slack line performance sucks but:
- you have a Barrel with excellent slack line performance on the other side;
- you can still blow an armed Four-String with one hand; and
- slack line situations are rare and can be avoided and I'm not much worried about them.
The Remote Barrel requires a light tug - and thus a bit of head movement - at the time you use it.
How do you manage the length variation of the lanyard...
Keel or shoulder mounted - non issues.
For a two point lanyard you could use excess lanyard length and just adjust the Button position to wherever you want and tie, trim, or ignore the excess.
For a shoulder mount you can use excess lanyard and eat the excess. You can continually adjust the play by eating string to take out slack and paying it back out if you feel like looking around. And you can EASILY replace the lanyard in a matter of seconds with whatever length of string you want.
And you're only worried about these things when you're in striking range of the runway. After I'm up a couple of hundred feet I spit them out.
