I’ve been tossing round the strength of recovery points and the techniques I see used to recover vehicles. My primary concern has always been a shackle or other piece of heavy hardware staying attached to the strap and hitting one of the vehicles or occupants at x00km/hr. A broken strap may not be fun, but a high speed steel projectile is far more dangerous.
My preference is not to use shackles with snatch straps unless it can’t be avoided. They will nearly always be stronger than the vehicle mount points. This means if the vehicle mount fails (likely from the debates circulating) before the strap at 8000KG, you’ll have 3kg of shackle headed toward you at high speed. You just supplied the projectile needed and you know it’s aimed straight at your vehicle.
A rated vehicle hook (not loop) circumvents this problem in a number of ways. If it fails in the hook itself there is little to become a missile, and it likely won’t stay with the strap. If the mounts or chassis fails there is a fair chance as it tears off, the strap will simply pull free of the hook.
In the situations where you have to use a shackle with vehicle loops there is a simple solution would provide a great deal of safety. Use a second strap – preferably a rated tree trunk protector – and connect it with shackles to two separate mount points on the car. Feed the tree trunk protector through the eye of the snatch strap. Now you have the situation where:
a) Each mount is only subject to approx 60% of the load (depending on the angles)
b) The tree protector is only subject to 60% of the load
c) If a mount fails the unraveling of the protector as it passes through the eye will significantly dampen the recoil of the snatch strap
d) If the mount fails the shackle and mount is still attached to the vehicle via the other side of the short strap – no projectile risk.
I don’t mean this as an excuse to fitting rated mounts, or as a reason to use the factory tie down points. BUT. We all know it happens and may be guilty here and there of doing the same. At least this way the result won’t be catastrophic and the only additional hardware is a second strap of some type.
It’s definitely a lot simpler than some of the techniques I have seen suggested with a rope at each end, and more reliable than a damper thrown over the strap.