Synthetic winch rope

[Alaska Mike]

This weekend I decided I'll stick with cable for a while. A friend was in a got-to-winch situation, 15 miles back on a hilly, greasy, rocky trail with a broken rear driveshaft on his FJ-40 and a limited slip in the front that wasn't pulling over the smallest bump. The 3/8" rope kept getting wet/greasy and slipping down into and binding the 8274 spool, causing it to break. Obviously this rope had issues to start with, but they weren't apparent just sitting on the drum. Only a couple years old. We had three breaks, none of them at the figure 8 knot I tied to repair it. The constant rain could have had an affect there. These were not full load pulls by any means, and the rope wasn't being jerked. It just failed, right when we needed it most.

Others up here have great success with winch rope, and other brands (I'm not sure who made this particular rope) are much more reliable/durable. I just can't justify the purchase right now when I've never had a cable fail. There's too many other issues that are pending.

 

[Photog]

Interesting. How does a rope get into the spool and cause binding on an 8274 winch. Wouldn't the fairlead keep it organized toward the middle?

If a rope can get into the spool, and cause binding, isn't that a winch design problem?

I have not looked that closely to the 8274. Does anyone have photos of how this might happen?

 

[Alaska Mike]

I should have been more clear. The rope was slipping down into the windings on the spool. Even after spooling and re-spooling the rope under tension and tightly, it just kept binding. We tried a couple different style wraps to see what would happen, but to no avail.

The breakage was what annoyed me the most. 3/8" rope should be strong enough to stall a 8000lb winch. I doubt it was pulling 1000lbs when it was failing (slight incline, no real obstacles to pull over).

 

[ntsqd]

FWIW it sounds like the line was over-due for replacement. I'm thinking that any judgment of poly winch lines based on that performance is poorly based.
My admittedly limited experience with 8274's is that they tend to wind the live end down into the wraps on the spool with steel cable too. Can't recall ever seeing a used 8274 that didn't have a minor rat's nest on it's spool.

Though that doesn't lessen the hassle of dealing with it.

 

[Alaska Mike]

3-4 years of occasional use (less than half that of my 5/16" steel cable) and it's done? In this case, with this particular rope... color me unimpressed. For what it runs new, I was expecting something... more. When your life depends on a rope (and mine has more than once), you tend not to takes chances when selecting your gear. Looking at my budget for modifications and the track record of what I have currently, I'll stick with steel cable for now. If I was competing or more concerned with weight, I would revisit this opinion.

 

[Alaska Mike]

In regards to the 8274 and it's spooling characteristics, I think the line speed and how their used has more to do with any rat nesting than the design. The fact that it will pull through just about any nasty looking spool job tends to make people lazy. I could never get away with the side pulls I do occasionally with the 8274 with my old M8000. At least, not without a lot of repositioning and periodic respooling.

 

[Photog]

OK, I think I understand what you are saying. The wet rope was sliding down into the lower layers of rope, as the tension was applied.

So; where was the rope failing? At the fairlead; in the spool; mid-air;...?

 

[Alaska Mike]

One failure was in the drum (that was a pain to dig out), one was at the roller fairlead (middle of roller, straight pull), and one was in the air. None of the knots I tied failed (again, perhaps due to the rain), even though the hook had a fairly sharp edge on the ring.

 

[Photog]

Wow!
Do you have any idea how old the rope was, or its history?

While you were having to deal with it, were there any frayed sections, causing the weakness?

I know if the rope gets dirt pressed into the weave, it will need to be cleaned, or the dirt will cause internal cutting, when under tension load.

 

[Alaska Mike]

As I understand it, the rope was donated to a local wheeler by a sponsor for his Outback Challenge bid a few years ago, and for whatever reason he decided to go with a smaller size and different brand rope. I think he made the right choice.

 

[paulj]

Samson has a paper looking at the use of their ropes for mooring large ships. They concluded that a smooth, closed fairlead was better than a roller one. The rope (amsteel blue) was too slick to rotate the rollers much, and the corner where the vertical and horizontal rollers met was a potential pinch point.

paulj

 

[ntsqd]

In regards to the 8274 and it's spooling characteristics, I think the line speed and how their used has more to do with any rat nesting than the design. The fact that it will pull through just about any nasty looking spool job tends to make people lazy. I could never get away with the side pulls I do occasionally with the 8274 with my old M8000. At least, not without a lot of repositioning and periodic respooling.

I'd agree with that! Does make me wonder about those who've widened their spool though. Is that an even bigger rat's nest or ?



Since my testing and it's localized heat observations I've often wondered about the wisdom of a hawse fairlead when used with a poly line, but it does appear to be the better way to go. Maybe the length of contact is long enough to avoid generating enough heat to damage the line?

 

[Photog]

They now make the hawse fairlead from HDPE plastic. Seems to be a better match to the synthetic rope. I'm sure there are some differences in heat generation and retention, compared to the metal hawse fairlead.

 

[paulj]

I was thinking more about use of synthetic winch rope with a short range hand winch like a come-along or hilift. The big advantage of chain is that you can maintain tension regardless of the distance to the anchor. But chain is heavy.

I haven't seen any discussion as to whether it is possible to attach prusk lines (or related knots) to the blue line. It may be too slick. Plus the knots are a potential weak point.

Samson has instructions on using their lines on H-bollards when mooring ships. So line that can't take knots can still work with the larger surface and curvature of a bollard. But I am having trouble thinking of a portable bollard like object that would work with a light-duty SUV.

Yesterday on a Washington ferry, I looked at the mooring lines. At first glance they looked like large diameter, 3 strand yellow polypro lines. But I suspect they were really were 8 strand Proton-8 lines from Samson (or something similar). This uses the same core fiber as the amsteel blue, but in a higher friction design (with a polyester cover) that provides higher grip and heat resistance. But, the smallest size is 1", 61,000 lbs.

Actually the H-bitts paper is for this 8 strand line
http://www.samsonrope.com/site_files/8Strand_Rope_Handling.pdf


paulj

 

[craig]

I was thinking more about use of synthetic winch rope with a short range hand winch like a come-along or hilift. The big advantage of chain is that you can maintain tension regardless of the distance to the anchor. But chain is heavy.

Exactly. I carry chain now, but have been thinking about carrying a 25' rock strap instead. Like chain, the winchline.com rock straps stretch very little and are robust enough to wrap around a rock. The advantage being that they are much lighter and easier to handle. The chain is stronger for sure, but the rock strap is easier to use and pack. http://www.winchline.com/treesaver.htm

Craig