The Amazing Lightweight Rope That Can Lift A Car!!!

It used to be that the gold standard for strength and low stretch in sailing was this, stainless steel.

Now it’s this, a synthetic fibre called Dyneema, which is not only stronger than steel, but soft, and much nicer to cuddle with.

Dyneema is also much lighter, and 100 feet of this weighs only one pound, or 450 grams, so it floats. This doesn’t float.

Finally, you can us Dyneema line to replace both the wires to hold up your mast, and as fasteners like this shackle, by making soft shackles.

These soft shackles are very easy to make, like in this video, and very strong. This soft shackle made with 3/16” or 5mm Dyneema is strong enough to lift a car, plus you can make them in any length you need.

A single strand of this 3/16 or 5mm Dyneema can hold two tons. The strength of a soft shackle really comes down to the type of knot you use.

We’re going to need more than a 1.5 ton car to really put this to the test, so I enlisted the help of this six ton hydraulic press, and attached the soft shackle like this.

Even with a simple overhand knot, which is the simplest kind of knot you can use in a soft shackle, we could still lift a car, that just wasn’t enough weight, so hopefully this six ton press will help us find the limits.

The Dyneema is so strong that it doesn’t break, but the overhand knot is starts to slip at around 1.75 tons, still more than enough to lift a car. Most lines break before the knot, but not Dyneema.

If you need more strength, use a better knot, like a Diamond knot, although those are more difficult to tie. I tried that and just wound up deforming this piece of steel in the press, but the Dyneema didn’t break.

These soft shackles have all kinds of uses on sailboats, like connecting the mainsheet to the clew of the main sail, or connecting the spinnaker blocks to the boat, or even replacing a busted steel clew ring.

On my boat I use Dyneema lines and soft shackles for connecting the main sail to the main sheet, as well as for the main outhaul and reef lines.

I use Dyneema soft shackles for connecting the spinnaker turning blocks to the aft beam.

And that’s a Dyneema soft shackle for attaching the spinnaker sheets to the spinnaker clew, and the jib sheets to the jib clew.

You may think that foiling is the greatest gift to sailing in the last decade, but foiling wouldn’t be possible without materials and control lines made of Dyneema.

Moreover, everybody can benefit from Dyneema lines on their boats, whereas very few boats can benefit from foiling.

Overhand knot holds 75% of line strength, double figure eight holds 150%.

Do not use for safety critical applications (e.g. 4x4 recovery)!!!

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