Marlow SPIES Rope

Special Patrol Insertion and Extraction System (SPIES) rope is normally 27m-40m long and can carry 10-12 operators. They allow the operators to be inserted, or more often, extracted by a helicopter without it landing.  The ropes contain loops built into the body of the rope that operators can connect themselves before being lifted up and carried under the helicopter back to base or a safe landing point.

Marlow manufactures three ranges of SPIES ropes; a standard range using a rope with a polyester body and two floating versions. The floating ropes allow extractions to be made from the sea and other bodies of water – the floating  WPX series uses a PolyOlefin body and the floating DPX series uses a Dyneema D12+ HMPE body (the higher yarn strength of HMPE fibres means that a thinner, more compact body can be utilised)

The Marlow SPIES ropes have been designed to allow troops to be picked up from both land and water; they come in three styles:

• 28mm double braided Polyester ropes with a 24 plait sheath and 12 plait braided core in 27.4 and 40.0m lengths with 8 to 12 extraction loops.
• 30mm 12-strand braided Polyolefin bodies in 27.4 and 40.0m lengths with 12 extraction loops. These ropes float and allow the extraction of personnel from water and have relatively long elongation for lower impact forces.
• 12mm and 20m 12-strand braided Dyneema D12+ bodies with 8 to 12 extraction loops. These ropes float and allow the extraction of personnel from water

The ropes use a dual coloured (red and green) extraction loop system that gives operators visual clipping points with a built-in backup loop. Each rope also has a yellow loop for easier and visual retrieval.

All of the ropes have a spliced eye with a heavy-duty cover for increased durability and abrasion resistance.