Dyneema Loop Soft Shackle

With the evolution of modern ropes sailors are inventing thousands of use cases for Dyneema loops. The team at bottom up boat recently saw a great use case that turns a dyneema loop into a soft shackle in seconds.

With soft shackles replacing tradition shackles at a speed we have never scene before most spare parts kits now carry several soft shackle and at the very least a few meters of Dyneema so you can make your own as required.

If you need to make a soft shackle in a hurry we suggest stocking your spare parts kit with several dyneema loops of a variety of lengths. Using this technique demonstrated in this video you can turn your Dyneema loops into soft shackles in seconds.

Depending on the width of you rope and the use case you can choose between the :-

"Over Hand loop knot"

or the

"Double over hand loop knot"

to finish your soft shackle.

Need learn to tie a dyneema loop ? You can learn in less than 5 minutes by watching another Bottom Up Boats demo video.

How to create Dyneema Loop

If you need to get the gear to help you create your continuous dyneema loops you can pick pick up a D-Splicer from the link below.

D-Splicer

The team at bottom up boats recommends using these soft shackles when you are in a hurry and on use cases were there is not a lot of movement of the shackle for example fixing blocks to a fixed point. If you are attaching sheets to sails and there will be a lot of movement we suggest traditional splice soft shackles which have a more secure locking point.

Our favourite soft shackle use a combination of an eye splice and the overhand knot to create a soft shackle with 230% breaking strain of a single length of the rope.

Our favourite soft shackle.

We hope you enjoyed todays video where the team at bottom up boats showed you how to make a continuous dyneema loop. As an amazon associate the team at bottom up boats gets commission from qualify purchase.

[bunyipdan]

G'day there guys, I commented on an earlier video, great to see you showing another way to make these soft shackles. As I mentioned previously there are several ways I make this type of quick soft shackle more secure;
- When tying the overhand stopper knot leave just a short loop at end (as you did) but pass the long loop through the small loop and cinch the overhand knot up tight pulling up the small loop up to the knot....by doing this you essentially lock the overhand stopper knot and it will not pull though (I think this method is better than the traditional button knot or diamond knot, quicker and easier....only down side is it takes up more rope to tie).
- There are many ways to connect or use this stoper knot soft shackle you have to make the shackle more secure tie an over hand knot/marlin spike hitch in one of the loop lines (not both) slightly offset at the resulting constricting loop at the end, this knot can be cinched up or moved to create the desired size terminal/end loop and ensure the shackle is balanced under load. The loop can be easily opened to fit over the stopper knot and slid closed to choke the base of the stopper knot (essentially the same as the standard spliced version of a soft shackle), this makes a very secure attachment to the shackle and is the one I use for inconsistent loads.
- Or you can tie a larks head knot/cow hitch in the end of the loop, this is slipped over the stopper knot perpendicular to the soft shackle rather than inline, and tightened directly behind the stopper knot and is very secure (however can be difficult to undo after tension is applied (not sure about how much this effects the ultimate strength but there are now four wraps to distribute the load at a virtually un-collapsible stopper knot).
I would love to see a load test between the soft shackle to see how much the different techniques compromise/increase the shackle strength, and may be a comparison between how much rope is needed to build a standard size soft shackle with each style/method.
Apologies for another long explanation difficult to put into words.