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Technical Details

I acquired this 9Spirit Cœur from CanyonZone.com - Gertjan van Pelt in 2024.

My 9Spirit Cœur is 122 mm. tall, 82 mm. wide, 10 mm. thick, and weighs 97 g.

The Cœur is milled from aluminum alloy plate. The upper eye is 14 mm. in diameter. The rope opening is 45 mm. tall and 52 mm. wide. The lower eye is 13.3 mm. wide, 14.6 mm. tall, and is fitted with a captured o-ring.

The front of my Cœur is stamped with "EN-15151-2," "Ø 8.5 - 10.5, a rigging illustration, and the 9Spirit logo. The rear is stamped with a Reading-si-Dangerous icon, "9spirit.com," and the 9Spirit logo.

Comments

The Cœur looks like a a figure eight with ears - lots and lots of ears - but 9Spirit's instructions do not show it rigged as one. They show a free-running rigging, which is too fast for my taste. Maybe that explains all the horns. THe horns provide many options as shown in the Cœur's instructions. Read these carefully, as some of the lock-off methods that may seem obvious are not recommended. 9Spirit's instructions give several examples with the following caption:

Attention : ½ clé additionnelle en torsion interdite car possiblement trop difficile à défaire

In other words, some lock-off methods can be difficult to unlock. Learn to avoid them.

There is worse. 9Spirit's instructions also state,

Le Coeur nécessite l’usage de mousqueton poire / Hms à sec􀆟on non circulaire.

i.e., the Cœur requires using a n HMS carabiner with a pear-shaped cross section, not a circular one. In other words, forget about using the Cœur with most of your carabiners.

The eye is small and there are many normal carabiners and maillons that will not fit through it. This is a fatal flaw, in my opinion. A tiny eye restricts versatility, and eliminates the option of using two carabiners for redundancy.

The eye has an annoying o-ring insert. In my mind, this is just a bad idea that won't go away.

• The o-ring keeps the Cœur from moving freely on the carabiner.
• It makes attaching and removing the Cœur more difficult.
• It catches in the notch in some of the carabiners that will fit.

Plan on dedicating a special carabiner if you want to use your Cœur.

Canyoneering descender designers and users may love o-ring eyes, but I hate them. O-ring eyes increase cost without providing a corresponding benefit. I see too many disadvantages to the small o-ring eye design and no advantages.

• Reducing the chance of dropping the device in one unlikely scenario by adding another item to drop doesn't count as an advantage, proper technique solves the dropping problem.
• I'm told that the tight o-ring guards against cross-loading and rollouts, but proper harness design and proper technique completely eliminate this concern.
• An o-ring eye may keep the orientation of the rappel device more stable when unloaded, which might help speed the process of coming off rope. The one place that I see this being relevant is if you're floating/treading in water over your head, but proper flotation is a much better and safer choice to address this concern.

You may disagree with me about o-ring eyes, I don't mind, but the undersize o-ring eye alone is sufficient for me to eliminate the Cœur from serious consideration.