Soft shackles on low friction rings

[Seaworthy Lass]

I need to attach a low friction ring to a pad eye on a short strop.
I asked a few weeks ago if anyone was using soft shackles for this and I tried simply winding one around a ring:

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

This wasn't made to measure. It needs to be a bit shorter:




Side view of how the ring is gripped:

Evans posted this photo:



And also this (just to keep all info together):

Originally Posted by estarzinger

Initial reactions:

1. strength fine - just size dyneema properly
2. are you going to have a rubber or soft surface to the top of the aluminum rail? if not I imagine the ring edges will get dinged up pretty quickly. On the french approach the rings are sometimes held up with shock cord - but that presumes something above to tie it to - and their decks are less likely to ding the ring.
3. I would want to do something so the ring is actually firmly captured in that loop and something to prevent it from 'inverting' - my photo above does both. I guess if the soft shackle is really short and exactly correct length it will do both those things.

You could just put the soft shackle thru the middle of the ring (not as theoretically strong but most likely very adequate) - also solves my #3 - but still leaves #2. The soft shackle with have a 90 degree twist (assuming your rails are fore/aft) but that should be ok.

Now that I finally need to use one, I have had more serious play to see how the low friction ring can be best secured.

A crossover seems to work quite well, without any fussing. Evans, is this the same as you posted in the photo with the blue dyneema?




Above I have simply used a BB soft shackle from the recent batch. I think a high strength one would be better in this application though, so I will make one up and with the length a touch shorter.

If the soft shackle was made longer, then I guess it could be cow hitched to the attachment point. If flogging is an issue that may keep the low friction a little snugger, as the whole shackle could not rotate around. It does lengthen the whole system though and I would not want to be hitching through the bit where the tails were buried. Is a cow hitch better or worse than a simple turn when it comes to compromising the strength?

Low friction rings and soft shackles have been in use for years and this combination must have been frequently discussed and used, although nothing I have come across on CF.

Anyone aware of other info anywhere or have any other ideas on how soft shackles can be used on low friction rings?

SWL

[Seaworthy Lass]

I also found this post by Evans, which answers some of my questions above (I have a short memory span forgetting this ):

Originally Posted by estarzinger

I think what I posted in the pic in post #75 would make me happier - in that it captures the ring better. But ultimately I come back to what I said in post #63 as my preferred solution - multiple loop - with neck lashing - connected to your rail with separate soft shackle (since you want to be able to move it without taking the sheet out). I have an active imagination for things that can go wrong and that solution seems pretty foolproof (expect you need to deal with the 'ding' issue somehow).

Hmmm. The "3 minute bind" would fix the issue of possible ring inversion.
Maybe I will do this instead since you have reservations if the low friction ring is not properly secured.

SWL

[Seaworthy Lass]

OK! 3 minutes later (2 min actually as I didn't bother with a constrictor knot using whipping twine at the top, as I will be undoing it) here is the "3 minute bind" on a soft shacke. It looks like it may work well.

I will make a slightly shorter high strength shackle, bind it like this and give it a go.
Thinking more about how any tendency to invert needs to be addressed, I will move the cow hitches a bit lower:

Edited to add: SCRAP THAT IDEA

[Seaworthy Lass]

Discussion can be found continuing here:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...gs-169764.html