Soft Shackles...Anyone run them? Have you used them yet? Thoughts?

Big fan of soft shackles. I never go for my metal ones anymore. Honestly thinking of taking them out of the truck.

 

The idea is to replace the anchor bow shackles with these. They are lighter, so if something breaks they will do less damage if they go flying.

The material does not rot and is UV stable. Prolonged use (like hundreds of load cycles) in dirty environments could weaken them. But, well used anchor bow shackles would probably need replacement under such conditions as well. Sharp angles are an issue though. The trade off.

You should have as few connections as possible in a recovery system (each connection is a potential fail point). So, if using a tree, you would ideally put one of these through the eyes of the tree saver and the thimble on your winch line. This would give you only 3 pieces in the system, if you have a hook connected to your thimble, then connect the hook to the shackle that adds 2 connections (hook to thimble and hook to shackle), nearly doubling your potential fail points in the system.

And yes, most people ignore these principles of rigging.

 

I want to get soft shackles, but they are so much more expensive than metal. I get the safety aspect, but they still go flying in the WLL and MBS tests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INRc89LL_78

I will admit that it stretches pretty darn far before it gives, so you do also have a pretty good idea of whether you are overloading it....unlike metal that would hold shape until it pops (unless you are fortunate enough to see it start to bend)

 

I spent some time with a Dremel and rounded all the corners on the attachment points on my bumpers to remove the sharp edges where the soft shackles attach to the bumper. Went from pretty sharp to about a 1/8" rounded edge. Still way under the recommended bend radius or 4-6 inches, but butter then a sharp 90*.

 

Cost depends. Tactical Recovery Equipment sells good 3/4 soft shackles for $26. That is cheaper than a quality 3/4 anchor bow shackle at $35. Now, K72 and Factor 55 charge ridiculous prices for spliced rope and chafe guards.

In a slow pull, steel will deform before breaking and in actual use that deformation will happen if load cycled too excessively, letting you know it is time to retire it (this is assuming you are not loading it to breaking of course). Aluminum not so much, it develops micro fractures and looses strength without obvious damage. Soft shackles are prone to fail with a tight bend radius and are not appropriate for every application.

In that video, it was the equipment, not the soft shackle, that flys. The shackle stays in screen (unlike a breaking rubber band).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=66BXmM_JuBI&t=84s

 

I sailed for a few years on a small catamaran...All the rigging was newly built by me of dyneema, standing and running, all the "shackles" were also dyneema. All done by myself

It takes a little practice, but the soft shackles are not hard to make. They can be bought, of course, from many places. Here is a pic of
Colligo Marine soft shackles. They come in many different loading situations, of course.

 

That was the metal shackles losing their energy, not the soft shackle...