In reply to Andy Moles:
Hi Andy
This dates from Mike Robertson's Deep Water guide from 2007. Mike decided, with our support, to use the sport grade for DWS routes. His justification is below.
There is such a thing as a trad route with a sport grade in the database which we use in France, Spain and elsewhere for trad routes keeping inline with the local grading system. I would have thought that this is what we should use for the DWS flag but I'll get that checked.
Alan
Mike Robertson on Sport Grades in Deep Water:
Sport Grades - why?
The mixing of various grades in the UK has always caused a high level of confusion, and with good reason. The Brits seem obsessed with making things as complicated as possible! This is especially true in the game of deep water soloing, where historically we've used a combination of three grading systems. These are:
Extremely Severe 'XS' grades - These were often used for deep water solos with many references in the 1996 Climbers' Club Dorset DWS Guide. The XS grade prefixed the hardest English technical move. The problem with the XS grade is that it doesn't tell you how sustained the climbing is; it only tells of how hard the hardest move is.
English grades - (As in E4 6a). These weren't so bad for DWS, but the problem was the 'E' bit of the grade, which all too often denoted the danger element, due to the lack of available wire protection. A further difficulty was that you don't drag a full climbing rack up a deep water solo! A deep water solo just doesn't need this 'E' grade (we thankfully don't have to fumble endlessly with wires), which was why more and more new routes were being put up using the Sport, or 'French' grade.
Sport/French grades - Adopted wholeheartedly for this guide, and universally understood - the World's favourite grade. The sport grade was initially used in DWS for areas such as Dorset's Stair Hole, where the routes were put up as sport routes, then later soloed. The grade quickly picked up momentum within the grading of new DWS routes, especially at venues such as Mallorca's pumpy Diablo. This grade gives an overall impression of difficulty, and fits the DWS genre almost perfectly, although it's not quite as fitting for boulder-problem solos.