Synthetic Winch Ropes
Winch Ropes
One of the most important features of synthetic winch lines is the safety benefits they provide. Synthetic lines do not store energy while under load and are very lightweight. This means that if something should go wrong and the rope breaks, it will harmlessly fall to the ground. Steel wire rope on the other hand, stores a tremendous amount of energy under load, and in the case of breakage, will violently snap back and whiplash. This can cause serious injury to people involved in the winching procedure.
Synthetic winch lines have breaking strengths 30-90% higher than steel wire rope. This is a tremendous increase and allows for smaller diameter winch lines to be used when switching to synthetic, therefore increasing the amount of line that can be installed on the winch.