Is there anything wrong with putting a compass on a lanyard around your neck while hiking?

Blake

i would say no,i carry a digital camera on a lanyard with the camera in my shirt pocket and never of had a problem.the hassle comes if you have more than one lanyard around you neck and they get tangled up or crossed over.at home on dog walks i have carried a water bottle on a shoulder strap,the camera and a small gear bag with the lunch and odds and ends,the dog walks are more like hikes,and its a struggle getting one or the other off.
if it's just one item you may want to be a Safety Sam and use a break-away lanyard like hospital workers use to carry their ID's.

I had not thought of the safety breakaway. Wonder how I'd do that.

Great suggestion,

Blake

You can buy a lanyard with a break-away, most companies only buy this type now (health and safety).

I purchased some online a while ago, if you do a search for something like "Lanyard Safety Breakaway Connectors for Paracord" you should find something, as well as ideas for custom made options.

If you have a flat ribbon type of lanyard, cut the lanyard and then stitch the break back together with thread. It will be strong, but not strong enough to strangle you.

If you have a paracord necklace, you can use the stitching method or use heat shrink tubing to connect the two pieces since both the heat shrink and the paracord are round.

I've done the stitch method and it worked well - breaking strength was somewhere 50lbs. I've never tried the heat shrink tubing method, but I've read about this method being successful for others. If you try the heat shrink, let us know how it goes, I'd really like to hear more about it.

Why bother? In the hilly/mountainous country where I spend most of my time, I actually refer to my compass about once a decade or so - terrain reference is all you really need with decent topo maps.

On the water it is a different story, but I want the compass mounted on the foredeck of my kayak or in the binnacle of whatever I might be steering.

I tie my compass lanyard to my pack.

Issue with breakaway is that you might not notice when it happens while bushwhacking.

My compass lanyard is looped through my shirt pocket button hole, or attached to my pocket some other way, depending on the shirt. it stays in my pocket until I need it, and if my cold wet hands lose their grip, it is not lost. I hate things hanging around my neck. Just a personal preference thing.

My compass rides in a small pouch (old 1st Aid Pouch) on my belt. The cord is looped over the belt, between belt loops. The only way to lose it is to lose my pants.

Lots of people are hung up with the fear of getting hung by their own necklace. I'm not one of them. Here's my setup which includes a compass and pace counters. For centuries people have work things around their necks without breakaways. besides maybe factory folks, I'm not aware of any epidemic of hangings.

I wore a neck lanyard with critical edc (whistle, light, knife) for years, but ditched it for a pocket lanyard.

For centuries, the natural materials from which neck lanyards were fashioned often would break of their own accord before posing a safety problem. Modern synthetics like nylon are a different matter.

A lot depends on your activity - rock climbers should be more cautious about hanging things around their neck than say, hikers walking on a prepared trail.

Neck strangulation doesn't reach epidemic proportions, but it is a potential problem that can be easily avoided. Who was the Hollywood celebrity who was strangled by her own neck scarf many years ago?

And really, just because it's mostly ok and hardly anyone dies (that we hear about), doesn't mean it's not a good idea to apply one's thinking and forethought to prevent a problem in the future.

Work hands out lots of neck lanyards for various reasons. The ONLY ones I'll wear have a designed-in breakaway mechanism. There's no need to take any risk because of a lanyard.

With a breakaway lanyard, I'm afraid of it breaking away without my permission. While there's the off chance of the lanyard around my neck strangling me, there's a 26 times higher chance (fake stat) of the lanyard breaking away without my permission. As a result, I lose my signaling devices and other important gear. So, instead of dying from strangulation, I die from being unable to signal or being unable to start a fire. Are my concerns legit?

I would personally attach the lanyard to my daypack or backpack and not have anything else on my neck. But that's just me. It would conflict with my other stuff, especially the chest strap.

I use a shoulder strap clip for my GPSr and a separate clip for the hydration tube, then a lanyard for my whistle tucked into the pack lid. I don't use my compass [20 yr old Suunto MCA] as much any more except as a backup (yeah yeah, chastise me later! )

You could use paracord without the inner strands to tie the compass to a belt loop or pack strap or as a lanyard around your neck. Paracord without the strands is pretty stretchy but still way stronger than you ever need for this purpose and would give a little if you ever snagged it on a tree branch thus preventing stangulation. The alternate is to use elastic cord as a lanyard. That might keep it from tangling up with the rest of your gear. The problem is, I don't know if the lanyard hole on most compasses is large enough to put paracord or elastic cord through it, only way to know is to actually try it.

There's nothing quite like having your neck lanyard getting caught in a shredding machine to get the adrenalin juices flowing is there?

I take a somewhat pragmatic approach to this. I always tuck my shirt into my pants. I keep my lanyard inside my shirt at all times and it only comes out when reading the compass or whatever, otherwise it goes back into the shirt. I also have a lanyard that I cut and then stitched back together with thread and the breaking strength is around 50 lbs. If it breaks, the items will fall into my shirt and won't be lost. While backpacking, I carry a spare of everything that is on my necklace so a stealth loss of the necklace would not be catastrophic.

If you going to wear a lanyard, it needs to breakaway. Just look at all the people who lose fingers because they are wearing rings. That alone should be enough incentive to have a breakaway.

As for the lanyards getting caught in office machines, the same danger exists for men's ties and long hair but I don't hear anyone advocating that we ban either of those things.

a dancer, isadora duncan, died 1927 when her scarf became wrapped around the spokes and axle of a sports car.

not hollywood, but ....?

I worry about this during hunting season where I am climbing up into deerstands, or scrambling up steep slopes sometimes with wet or icy boots. I always have an oversized 27" bandana around my neck in the fall and winter, and I tie an overhand knot around the opposite corner of it so it will slip off if I fall. I have also tried various leather slides to hold it on, but they tend to escape into the woods when I'm not paying attention. I switched my EDC to a paracord pocket lanyard, but I would have no problem with a light leather lanyard around my neck. It would certainly break under my weight.

We have, and use, a DoD approved shredder and it's quite a fierce machine. Chewing thru the badges before it got hold of the lanyard would injure it pretty badly but I wouldn't want to engage in a tug-of-war with it using the back of my neck as my side of the war.

And all knives of any size, even 1" SAK, are forbidden in the workplace so there would be no (legal)self-rescue.

There oughta be a Dilbert strip about this.......

I could be wrong, but 50 lbs of concentrated force on your neck sounds like the potential for a significant injury to be likely.

Pete

For the neck lanyard, I prefer a breakaway although several of the items I carry are on a pretty strong breakaway.

My main compass (at work) is a Brunton Pocket Transit (large and heavy). It rides in a pouch on my left hip. When I am in the woods for fun, it is usually an old Silva in my pack or around my neck as conditions dictate.

I use lots of neck lanyards, one (through the collar of my shirt (button down)) for my hand lense (magnifying glass) - which goes between the first and second buttons in my shirt, one for my binoculars (Leitz 8x20) - goes between the second and third buttons, the third for my camera (in the right pocket) and (depending on terrain and conditions) my compass or altimeter (left pocket). Different colors, materials and destinations keeps them apart and functional. I don't like things dangling on my chest. For those who must ask, the space between the third and forth buttons is for my field book, while I am doing something else - not for general carry.

Like Hikermor I seldom use a compass for navigation in the Rockies or Sierras (I do use my altimeter there, on a lanyard around my neck), but lots of terrain (Great Plains, arctic tundra, glacial ice, flat woodland, etc.) and weather (blizzard, white out, fog, etc.) requires the almost continuous use of the compass. Canoeing in places like the Boundry Waters requires one to use it frequently (although I often tie it to the canoe in this situation - with the lanyard). All these situations make the lanyard - around the neck or tied to something handy - a very useful tool.

The neck is a good place in my opinion, but it must work for you. Many of my tools are on lanyards attached to their pouch or pocket as well (usually tied inside). This keeps the item attached but keeps the lanyard out of the way when not in use.

Respectfully,

Jerry

Someone above suggested a leather cord for a neck lanyard. That seems like a good option. The rationale is that a relatively thin leather cord is not strong enough to strangle. Are there any downfalls?

Otherwise, can someone provide a link to a good breakaway neck lanyard? Or how do I make one?

I just realized something. How does the strangulation issue come into play if I'm carrying around my neck my camera, my man bag or my rifle? None of these items have breakaway straps!

All of our younger/Beaver Scouts are required to wear a neck lanyard with whistle when we're hiking or camping. New break-away lanyards are a little out of our budget so we found a simple solution: We solved the problem by either using a length of rope, or a regular layard that has been cut, and tying a slip knot in the end. They are secure enough to hold the "not a toy!" whistle but will come loose if tugged.

I somewhat agree. I carry a 1+ lb camera + lens on a strap around my neck all the time and I would not think of putting a break away strap on it for fear of losing the camera if the breakaway failed at an inopportune time.

In general, out of an urban environment and in a wilderness setting I would think that it would take a nasty fall or slip, then something strong enough to hook the non-breakaway lanyard or strap onto, then at the same time, incapacitate your hands completely so that you could not reach the knife attached to your belt to cut yourself loose from the lanyard. Realistically I cannot envision all these occurring at one time nor did a quick Google search show any results where a person is out hiking and was strangled by a lanyard.

You won't strangle if your arm is in the loop, but you could get hung up.

I've done a whipping for a kids lanyard. tested the number of passes to get desired hold.

of course they don't, thats the insanity of this paranoia

I somewhat like that idea of the whipping. On another part of the rope, I would cut the rope and tie a bend (e.g., Butterfly Bend, Fisherman Bend or whatever). The bend would make the lanyard readily adjustable and allow easy changing of items.

A downfall is that if the whipping breaks out in the field (not too unlikely), then you'll have to tie a bend to join the rope. That defeats the purpose.

That's a key ring that will hold under normal loads, but will break if you try a little. It's not as small as the whipping, but this setup is more adjustable and friendlier to changing items. A simpler solution is to attach the ends to the keyring on the flashlight you see there. An all paracord solution would be ideal, but I haven't found an elegant solution.

The breakaway is the keyring on the flashlight. The knots are Bowlines. This solution is nice because there's no annoying knot on the back of my neck. Also, the items stay put and can't wander around the lanyard.

Even better...


This way, I don't lose the flashlight if the center keyring breaks away. Everything stays on the paracord.

Mild obsession here...



The breakaway is an O-ring, instead of a metal keyring. I'm guessing that O-ring breaks somewhere between 10 - 20 pounds. Extra O-rings are attached to replace a broken O-ring, or to increase the break strength if desired.

Now that is a great idea!

It beats my current heated paracord with silicone tubing coupler. It holds ok but is a pian to put together when seperated.

Also you can carry spairs. I have been thinking about gluing one end to avoid loss of the rubbe pice.

Time to ransack the garage.

Very smart!

I would not have gone through the challenge of making a breakaway lanyard if it wasn't for this site. My first post in this thread shows that I was previously opposed to the idea. Now, I realize its importance. Further, my new lanyard is more comfortable anyway. It's the little things that can matter so much.

I came across this video on another board and thought to add it to this discussion.

A Break Free Knot for Neck Carry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=864FSx_cTYQ

I didn't have much success with the overhand knot the author uses. Instead I used a nail knot and that seems to have enough tension for my tastes. A nail knot is similar to a hangman's noose.

Here's a link to the nail knot.
http://www.animatedknots.com/nailknot/index.php?Categ=fishing&LogoImage=LogoGrog.jpg