Sim79

I have never seen senthetic rope snap during normal wheeling. All the breaks were at 4x4 comps with very experienced drivers and navis.

From my last example they used the correct protection sleeves in two spots but the winch point was very high up and navi had to climb down to guid the 4x4 and couldn't see that rope was rubbing in a new third spot from the 4x4s movements.

MBATF

Safety, Strength, & Ease of Handling

You gain ease of handling, weight lost, and safer than steel cable when it snaps(no winch damper needed). Not to mention that you can actually repair the broken rope by splicing them back together. And synthetic rope have higher tolerance against weathering such as salt water, moist & etc. And won't pinch the line vs steel cable.





All the videos I have seen when the rope snapped were due to improper use, as in rubbing against something. In other hand, due to many of them are used while racing against time in competitions which they would rather take a chance vs taking up more time to make the corrections.

But personally, I have not yet seeing one snapped during regular non competition use.

cub23

I was speaking of normal use and correct use the syntetic line does not store as much energy and if used correctly should be safer.

Mark Doiron

Regarding the weight saving: Not only is the line itself lighter than steel cable, but the switch to a Hawse fairlead saves quite a bit of weight, too. I guesstimate that I saved 30 pounds or so on my front bumper.

dyolfknip

I run synthetic. Over the winter here though it froze solid to my drum. So I threw my steel back on for my winter wheeling. Not to bad to change the rope and fairleads back and forth.

trip0d199

I think one of the most durable solutions is to use a steel line with one of these:

http://www.quadratec.com/products/92144_403.htm

This takes out much of the force in the event of a cable breakage. Since it's steel winch line, you won't have abrasion issues over the rocks, no need to worry if it freezes when it's wet, no need to worry about UV rays from the sun.

On top of that, steel winch line breakage is rare.

07JKX

the only real pro's i see for synthetic line is your friend wont die if it breaks

the major cons i see... EXPENSIVE and one snag on a branch or rough surface could compromise the line... if you have certain recovery gear (winch roller, snatch block) that you have used with standard cable, throw it away and buy new gear designed for synthetic line

Littlejon

With synthetic do you need to spool it in under load like steel cable to keep it from getting bound up sop you can still freespool out?

07JKX

nope... no binding, kinking, or otherwise... i guess thats a pretty big plus as well!

but i will stick with my steel line... besides whats the fun in a line breaking and just falling to the ground... high tension steel breaking with enough force to cut through a 1 foot pine like a hot knife through butter is much more entertaining.

dyolfknip

You apparently dont watch Mythbusters. Long story short: cable breaking under severe force isnt enough to cut a full pig in half. But I bet it would hurt like hell.