My soft shackle failure experience 🤕 -- The Off-Road Recovery That Almost Killed Me

[Krimzun]

Two (!) dampeners loaded with 10 lb each seem to be a good mitigating factor. Look at the test in this video:

This here I don't do any recovery without a damper on the line one of the easiest things to pack in your recovery setup.

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[ohp138]

Just glad you're okay brother. That's all that really matters. You are blessed.

 

[telenerd]

I did a soft shackle recovery with ASR equipment. Anything I could have done better? Always looking for improvement when it comes to safety. Thinking back I don’t think the passengers in back should have been in back seat incase rope or something broke.

7/8 rope 28,000 MTS lb, 9000 lb WLL
3/8 Soft Shackle 43,500 lb MTS

 

[userdude]

Anything moving at a fast enough speed can kill. The stronger the tension the more energy there is to be released, the faster the object will go. ANY OBJECT, or any line material and whatever is connected on the end.

So you're saying Bruce Lee's hands really were deadly weapons?!?

 

[Glade Runner]

So you're saying Bruce Lee's hands really were deadly weapons?!?

If he’s not, I will.

(And Chuck Norris agrees)

 

[eqlol]

Glad you're okay bro. But my question is, will insurance cover anything of this? lol

 

[Mdozier]

1st, thank God you survived. Powerful lessons learned.

2nd, a kinetic rope is a loaded weapon and in the wrong/untrained hands, well...
That was not the right way for your jeep friend to use a kinetic pull, as you clearly knew, given your concern (justified concern). F=MA.
Give him the benefit for helping, and perhaps he's not had a failure before, so I suspect or hope he's learned a valuable-hard lesson as well.

Again, thank the good Lord you're ok and could come home and thanks for sharing. Good for us all to be reminded with a dose of reality every now and again.
m

 

[Roger123]

That was hard to watch, thank you for posting. Very happy you walked away!

 

[Cysquatch]

Glad you're doing well and wishing the rig a quick recovery. We need to hit this snow!

 

[swamp2]

Luck was in your side @popo_patty. So happy for you and yours.

The force in the rope approaches infinity,

No, factually incorrect. Kinetic ropes spread out impulse over longer times reducing loads. Regardless of a tow rope or kinetic rope, both experience large forces, but neither approaches infinity.

[/QUOTE]

F=ma

Citing one of Newton's Law brings no additional insight here...

What governs this is I = Ft (impulse equals force x time) and conservation of momentum and impulse (roughly).

Regardless of rope type, delivered impulse is roughly constant for a given vehicles mass and speed of tug. This impulse can provide a high force over a short time (tow strap with kinetic recovery technique (->very bad)) or a lower force over a longer duration (typical of kinetic recovery with kinetic rope). Despite being more gentle on the entire recovery system, the force applied here was too great for both the clevis and the one soft shackle.

Also @popo_patty are your front recovery points with that aftermarket bumper factory or custom to the bumper system?

 

[RP80]

Thanks for sharing @popo_patty , I watched the full video. Some of the YT comments were that soft shackles are not meant for dynamic pulls, that you should still be using a D ring with a soft shackle, which is the opposite of what I understood/have read (or what the kinetic rope/soft shackle companies say). A D ring would go in the circular hole in the recovery point (with sharper edges), and from what I understand a soft shackle would use the larger gap, which has softer edges. I bought soft shackles so that i didn't need the D rings in a recovery (although, prob. not a bad idea to have 1 or 2 D rings in the recovery kit as backups).

This is a design flaw with the modular bumper. The small hole is far too sharp for a soft shackle to be safe. The soft edges of the larger opening would make sense for a soft shackle, however it is heavily textured. This should have been a smooth finish. While the chances of an issue due to the abrasive effect of this finish are small, it's certainly not zero.

I'm on team hard shackle with the modular bumper.

 

[timhood]

I agree that multiple factors were involved, as is usually the case with a disaster., but I think the most important factor was the force of the pulls. Keep in mind that a kinetic rope designed for 30% stretch begins to fail after 30%. It has reached its limit of stretch and begins to be destroyed. I suspect the soft shackle actually performed to its expectations.

When I was considering what kinetic rope to get, my initial thought was, "larger is better," but after having studied up, asked questions and gotten advice, I realized that is not the case and decided that 7/8" is appropriate for the weight of the Bronco, based on the working load and break strength typical of this size. My soft shackles are rated higher than the rope. I have a dampener. I have a recovery strap and also a shovel so that I have a choice of what to use based on the conditions.

My first takeaway is to exhaust all other safer options prior to using a kinetic rope, tow strap or winch. My second takeaway from this is that I'm going to get a second dampener and some velcro that I can use to strap them to the rope to ensure they don't come off. I may get a third. I hope never to need this. My final takeaway if I'm in this situation is that prior to the yank, I will duck behind the dash. This situation was literally mere inches from death.

 

[JediMcMuffin]

Also @popo_patty are your front recovery points with that aftermarket bumper factory or custom to the bumper system?

its a little hard to describe. I have the same bumper, each end cap mounts first to the factory bumper attachment points with the 4 x OEM bolts, and then the center of the bumper mounts to those with four more bolts. Late in the assembly, you slide in the recovery point and the bolt for it is perpendicular to force exert on it, so it would have to sheer that bolt in half for it to fully let go, based on what he said in the video, it damn near ripped the bumper off the frame :O

 

[Beach_Bum]

Great video! Glad you were ok to make it @popo_patty ! I watched it at work w/a guy who had zero idea what was gonna happen and when the Jeep launched he was saying "no dude...don't do it!" I get everything you said about the recovery gear...buy stuff you can trust, but that wont fix the loose nut behind the wheel! Have seen whole bumpers ripped off doing stuff like that JUST DON'T! ALWAYS TAKE UP THE SLACK 1ST! Very educational! Sorry you had to go through that, but good for the less experienced to see it and think next time!

Quoting in agreement.

I didn't watch the video (I will). But my first reaction after reading the intro that it was the inexperience of the recovery vehicle that contributed to the failure of the gear.

Much like Caleb alluded to in difference of Americans vs. Australians when it comes to recovery, I've seen all too often where people have no idea what they are doing.

Glad that everyone was okay.

 

[604Bronco]

Wow, I'm glad you're ok - Thanks for sharing this.

As someone who's not an expert in off-roading, but enjoys it and will try to stop to help others whenever possible, this was eye-opening. This situation is part of the reason I'm so cautious about recovery gear quality and learning more about what to do properly, before I do it.

Thanks for sharing this important story for others. Even if it helps one person not get into a similar (or worse) situation, it's well worth it.

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