Soft Halyard or Line Shackle
 

I have come up with what might be a new way to connect a line such as Amsteel to something without having to use a separate soft shackle. It is very fast to use, much faster than a soft shackle and may even be faster that a regular snap shackle. It is based on a soft shackle but with the eye as part of the line and the diamond knot permanently connected to the target, such as the head of a sail. I have used it on my boat in several places and it really works well.



I am not completely sure if it is new and if it is, not sure what to call it. I have been calling it a soft halyard shackle but it has way more uses than just halyards. I would appreciate some feedback.

I completed some strength testing and find it very strong. I pulled it to destruction using a sample made from 1/8 Amsteel. It breaks just like a soft shackle -- at the diamond knot. Tests on a soft shackle show it has about 170% of line strength so I conclude that this shackle is 80-90% of line strength based on the fact that the knot in a soft shackle carries half the load. From previous tests, I felt I was near the line strength when the knot finally let go. It took a lot of force to break it. For example, I observed about 10% stretch on the 7/16 XLS anchor line from from the initial condition of being pulled as tight as a Barient 22 could pull to where the knot broke being pulled by a hydraulic jack.

I have written an article explaining it in detail. http://l-36.com/halyard_shackle.php

Allen

Nice
 

Hi there,
I like this variation on the theme, and would suggest that the way is open, with this and with normal soft shackles, for an even stronger attachment, through the use of four-strand buttons or lanyard knots. That way the shackle would not be the limiting factor, and in your case you'd have deeper redundancy for the permanently-affixed piece.
My favorite sheet configuration remains a 1-piece pair, secured to the clew with a soft shackle, with the whole works coming off for sail or rope maintenance or stowage. With this, one is not limited to HM sheets.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

You can also make the button loop out of one size larger line and get the strength back and the four-strand button is an interesting idea. I would not use this soft line shackle for sheets as the knot sticks out where it would hang on the rigging. I am using eye splices in XLS and a soft shackle to the clew ring with the knot held in the clew ring as shown below:

I have an extensive writeup on soft shackles here (first of 7 pages)
http://l-36.com/soft_shackle_intro.php

But what do you think about a name? Soft line shackle, or soft halyard shackle, or some combination?

Finally, what is a 1-piece pair?

Allen

Has anyone here done any testing on the luggage tag loop with several diamond knots in a row so as to be able to attach the loop at various points to make it adjustable?

In other wards, if you make the loop with many diamond knots, do all the diamond knots have the same strength?

I suppose I should just do some testing and write it up, but I want to rig my boat and go sailing!

Thanks,

Anton

Shackles
 

Hi,
I haven't done tests with that configuration, nor on Mr. Otto's sling with a series of Brummels, but those both sound like things worth doing. Meanwhile, I finally sent off some more "Improved" shackle samples for destruction-testing, and we might have results as early as today. Stand by.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

Oh, very cool! I guess I can find the time to do some pull tests, problem is how to rig up a scale.

Maybe a bathroom scale with a lever or something.

I think if I do a loop with multiple knots, and start at the farthest one, it would tell me if the first one is the most likely to break.

If they break sequentially, the only question is at what tension they break.

Hm.

I eagerly await new pull tests!

News
 

Hi All,
Just received a report from New England Ropes, re testing on the improved soft shackle. I will need to go over things in detail, but the design got significantly higher break strengths that the conventional one -- about 200% of rope strength, at least in the smaller sizes, and up to 280% when cycled a few times prior to the break. This compares with around 120% for the conventional design, in previous tests.
When I get things sorted out and averaged I'll be providing more details. Meanwhile I'll mention that these numbers, at least for the non-cycled samples, are lower than the results carried out by the estimable Evans Starzinger on a few preliminary samples. but then he also got higher results for the conventional design. It seems likely that there is a protocol difference that will account for the discrepancy, but in any event both sets of tests show a major increase in strength, and I have a couple of ideas for improving things further.
Many thanks to Stuart MacNeil and all the gang at New England Ropes for breaking these things! Do let them know how wonderful they are: Stuart.MacNeil@teufelberger.com.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

I just bought a 600Lb hanging scale that I will try to do pull tests with. I got the 600Lb scale because it was $30, I will use a lever to multiply it so I can measure a few thousand pounds. Probably won't be very accurate, but close enough, and might be good enough for comparison. I reckon I can easily do 4K with a come along I already have.

I will post any findings I have.

Anton

Brion,

Please describe the pre-cycling that was done before the test the yielded the higher strength, if you would.

Thanks,

Anton

Test results
 

Hi all,
Here are a few details from the tests.
First, as noted previously, the best numbers came with shackles that had been cycled at 50% of the average tensile result of shackles that had not been cycled. So if we broke 5 shackles, and they had an average break of 10,000lbs., then they cycled a sample up to 5,000lbs, ten times, before taking it up to break. This added about 20% to the shackle strength for most of the samples we broke.
Next, the smaller shackles did the best, with one notable exception. The average of uncycled breaks for 5/32" was 260% of rated strength, which dropped down to 195% for 3/16" and 141% for 1/4". But the 11mm HSR, New England's heat-treated rope, broke at 166% of rated strength (over 52,000lbs.)
Even the lower numbers were well in excess of numbers we have gotten with conventional soft shackles,. Most heartening.
Most of the tests were done with a lanyard through end of the shackle, and a pin at the other, though some were attached to a lanyard at both ends. The HSR started cutting through the lanyards at high loads, so the testers had to insert thimbles for those. With that exception, then, these numbers were for very tight bends, on the order of 1:1. This means, among other things, that we are safe using them to join rope to chain for anchor lines.
Most of the samples broke at the end of the tail bury, so the taper is one of the things I'll be adjusting in the next batch.
I'll be working with the wonderful tech people at New England Ropes to analyze this data further, and to prepare for future destruction.
Fair leads,
Brion

Hi Brion,

What did you use for a taper?

Very impressive results. It does start to bring up the concern that these loads get high enough you have to start to worry about the soft shackle cutting through any rope it might be securing. I have wondered if you are securing an eye splice in StaSet, what ratio of shackle and strength starts to move the failure mechanism to failure in the StaSet? Obviously not a concern when securing chain.

Allen

Details
 

Hi,
I used a fairly blunt taper, just cutting a 45 on the ends. That's one of the things I want to change for the next batch. As for the cutting problem, it happened, as I understand it, with a Spectra/Spectra connection, with a shackle of HSR, and a lanyard of the softer SK78. With a Dacron lanyard, it might be a self-solving problem, mostly because the Dacron should be at least 3 times the diameter of the HSR.
Fair leads,
Brion
PS,
You can see a video of a shackle break here:
https://www.facebook.com/brion.toss

Two things:

1) The Samson taper is strong and easy. 1 fid length back cut e/o pair for total of half the strands. Then taper the very end with a shallow cut or by removing half the remaining strands working away from the end
.
2) The cutting of line I was worried about is as follows. Say you have some 7/16 StaSet at 6600 pounds and want a soft shackle of similar strength. For thin line you have 260% line strength so 1/8 Amsteel is a perfect match. The question is did you just introduce a new failure mode where the 1/8 inch soft shackle cuts through the 7/16 line causing a failure in the splice of the StaSet.

Cuts
 

Hi again,
I rather doubt it; the fatter Dacron would provide a bigger radius, thus more surface area. But care to make up some test samples?
Fair leads,
Brion

Opportunity
 

Hi all,
We are moving into the next phase of shackle destruction, with a batch that will be made by me, and by other riggers. This will take a bit of time, especially as I am shortly heading for Tasmania, but we will post the results here.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

Back to soft halyards
 

So, I was playing around with the strong soft shackle yesterday and realized that its design lends itself to a "soft halyard" type construction.

The interesting feature of this shackle design is that the tails exit on the same side of the knot as the standing parts. What's to say that we have to bury the tails into the standing parts?
What happens if we make one tail longer? Maybe significantly longer, then bury the other (short) tail into it?
Well, now we have a soft shackle with a spare long tail that we could do something useful with!

I guess you could do this at the end of a halyard, but it would be mildly annoying to build the button knot with such a long tail (the rest of the halyard), and if the shackle eventually failed for some reason, reconstructing it would shorten the halyard by several feet.

One interesting use would be to thread 72 diameters or more of the tail over another line. This would give us a soft shackle that could be slid to any position on the line, but would stay put as soon as a load is placed on it (something like a whoopie sling)!


This type of construction would yield a strength of somewhere short of 100% (of single line strength), but might be useful for something like a backstay pigtail.

I am not following what you have here. It looks like you have one line coming down into a diamond knot but somehow it becomes two strands. I have done a lot with soft halyards but, as I said, not sure what you have here.

This is what I am using now for my halyard. http://L-36.com/HybridHalyard.php

Actually it is Brion's button knot rather than a diamond knot. When the knot is completed, you have 4 parts exiting the bottom of the knot. 2 legs make the shackle, and 2 legs are "tails". Normally the tails would be buried into the legs that make the shackle, but in this case I left one tail quite long, and buried the other tail into the longer one. That leaves a shackle at the end of a very long tail.

As I said earlier, this construction is probably not ideal for halyards, but might be useful in other applications.

Your Hybrid Halyard is what I use for my halyards ... it really is a better solution for halyards. No taper to jam in sheaves, and the shackle at the end can be replaced if needed.

^^ I recognized the button knot and misspoke when I said diamond knot. Sorry about that. I guess what you have is a second line inside the cover that comes down into the button knot. It just looked like you had one line coming into the button and one out but there should be four.

Thanks for the kind comment about my halyard shackle.

breaking ropes
 

I did some destructive testing with my idea of the adjustable diamond knot attachment. Basically what I came up with is that the multiple diamond knots are stronger than the line with spliced loops at the end that I pulled on it with.

I did a very simple eye on both ends, one of them whipped so as to make it an adjustable eye to put over the diamond knot, and a non-secured eye on the other end which I either put over a bolt in my steel table, or luggage tagged to an endless loop that I then attached to the table in some way or another, for adjustability. None of the splices slipped.

I then put the adjustable loop over the outermost of 5 diamond knots at the end of a loop, then luggage tagged the multiple diamond knot loop to a shackle and pulled it with a come-along with a deer scale on it so as to be able to observe the tension at which it broke.

I used 1.75mm dyneema of some sort I had lying around; it is probably be Samson Lash-it, which has a stated breaking strength of 400Lbs.

In 8 tests, in only the first one did a diamond knot fail. It slipped at 350Lbs and failed at 375. It was the first 5 diamond knots I had ever tied in my life. I imagine that the legs were of uneven lengths, as I had trouble making the knots come together evenly.

In all of the other tests, I was not able to break any of the diamond knots on the second set of 5 diamond knots I had ever tied in my life. I am sure were better, more consistent, and tighter than the first 5.

The line mostly broke at the end of the taper in the splice a about 300-400Lbs, even though I tried to make nice long tapers, and I broke one eye at the end where it was hooked onto the diamond knot.

All in all, I am pretty sure that the multiple diamond knots in a row are all at least more than 100% of the strength of the line with loops, which was what I was hoping to prove.

I am assuming that the results would have been the same with the larger line I plan to use, but may do a test later to make sure.

Here is a link to some of pictures of my test rig, and the carnage

https://www.flickr.com/photos/959099...7651093139326/.

Details
 

Hello,
Great fun. This is similar to the work of rigger Matthew Otto, though he uses a series of locked Brummels. As for relative strengths, first quibble: I believe Lash-It has an average break of 500lbs.
Next, your pictures appear to show the line doubled on the scale, or nearly so (slight angle). If so, the scale will read about twice the load on the rope. Did you take this into account?
Next, there is no question that the Diamond weakens the rope severely. On the other hand the material is doubled in this configuration. Still it is intriguing that the attached eye piece broke. One question: what do you mean by an adjustable eye? I can't picture it, or how a whipping is involved.
With a clearer idea of the configuration we could conduct more formal tests.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

First: Yes, Lash-It has a breaking strength of 500 Lbs. I got the 400 number from somewhere on the web which was not the Samson website. Careless Googling...

Basically, this is what allene on L-36 is calling a line shackle or a soft halyard, only with more diamond knots in line so as to be able to attach the eye at various points to make an adjustable assembly. What I am erroneously referring to as the "adjustable end" is the eye that you can enlarge to put over the diamond knot. I am not sure what the name for that part of the assembly is, just "eye"? The soft shackle eye? Retractible eye? Please tell me what I should be calling it so as to make myself better understood. I am going to go with soft halyard for the assembly, even though I plan to use this attachment on a small boat for the shrouds and forestay, hence the need for at least a gross method of adjustment. But what do you call the spliced eye which can be enlarged temporarily to insert the diamond knot? I know I am doing this against the advice and good sense of people smarter than I, but will do it anyway ;-)

In any case, I whipped the soft shackle eye in place, as opposed to sewing it, only out of laziness, as I couldn't find a needle at the time. I figured it didn't matter as long as it held the splice in place so the eye size wouldn't change when opening and closing it to put it on the diamond knot, and since the whipping is not what makes the splice stick, it didn't really matter that I did that instead of sewing. Correct me if I am wrong.

As for the pulling rig, I have the stainless flat bar arranged so the mechanical advantage is 3:1, with the scale reading 1/3 of the load on the line being tested. The scale was reading between 100 and 140 or so, but it is hard to certain since it is bouncing around, and the come-along is a ways away from the scale face. I plan to rearrange it to get an easier read. I also plan to make a holder for my cell phone so I can take video, which will make it very easy to ascertain the maximum reading. The scale goes up to 550Lbs, but I did the lever so I could test higher strength lines. I will probably re-do these tests with the scale pulling directly as I think that will be more accurate.

I too was a bit surprised that the one eye broke, and am not sure why that happened. Could have been bad workmanship; eye too small? At this point, I can do all the splices quickly and easily, so further testing will be easy. Pulling straight with the scale, and getting the break on video will make the test easier to do, more accurate, and I can watch the line break instead of trying to watch the scale while it happens, which is less fun.

I don't have a theory as to why the line is breaking at 400 or so at the end of the taper in the bury, as opposed to the stated breaking strength of Lash-It at 500. I too will try to make better tapers, and also make more accurate sized eyes, etc.

As some point, I will pull the larger lines and see if the testing with the big line is proportional to the little ones.

But again, the main thing I was interested was whether the multiple diamond knots would break before the rest of the assembly. The soft halyard with luggage tag loop with a single diamond knot is well tested, but I could not find anything written up about using multiple diamond knots, nor could I get anyone to venture an opinion on it.

I will always do the right thing, but only after trying everything else ;-)

Anton

PS: many thanks to allene for putting all that great info up on the L-36 site, it has been very interesting and useful to me.

Oh, also, please tell me more about Watthew Otto's work.

Did he make something similar in function to what I am trying to do, only with locked brummels, or are you saying that he was testing locked burmmels in a similar manner?

Anton

PS Maybe Opening eye? Openable eye? Was that my third eye? Was it blind?

PPS I guess allene is just calling it a shackle, but that is what I was using as the name for a soft shackle, the whole assembly. Hm.

I would encourage you to use either a brummel or stitch, not a whipping.

If I understand what you are doing, I do not think the multiple diamond knots will hurt the strength of the assembly. The weak point will be the joint at the diamond knot and the eye of the line shackle.

These things typically break at the knot. You should have a strength of about 1/2 line strength but if your setup is doubled as Brion says, then getting about line strength would be right. It should not break at the splice so that is a huge mystery. You should have close to line strength there. Perhaps I am not understanding the setup.

Enthusiasm
 

Hello again,
First, a picture of Otto's adjustable sling. Kind of a reverse version of yours, with no adjustable eye needed. We don't have confirmed break numbers for this one, either. Your configuration shows promise, but your enthusiasm and creativity is somewhat offset, at the moment, by a lot of variables and approximations; we just can't get meaningful numbers based on the setup you show. For that matter, we can't even comprehend what that setup is. I urge you to make friends with someone who can do some formal breaks.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

I looked at the flicker pictures again and my guess is that you are pulling on line that goes around one of your pins and then breaks after the pin. My thought is that you are getting friction at that pin so not all the force on the line goes to the DUT. But I can't really know for sure because the setup is not clear from the pictures.

Allen

I attached the one end in several different ways, only in order to get the length right, not having taken any care in the length of the connecting line. None of which affected how they broke.

They broke at the end of the bury in the spliced line for the most part. The eye and the knot breaking were anomalies.

I will re-do the test with more care, and better pictures and I hope I will confirm that the breaking point will consistently be the bury and not the knot, and not the eye, but we shall see.

I am pretty sure I have already proved that it will break at close to line strength, in the application the tension is probably less than 20% of breaking strength even at peak loads, I just wanted to make sure that there wouldn't be some freak situation at the diamond knot that would give me less than 50% strength.

What I am doing is exactly like Allen's Soft Halyard, only with more diamond knots. In 9 test pulls, it never broke at the diamond knot closest to the loop, only at the last knot, the one the eye was pulling on, and seemed to break at about 80% of line strength.

I'm pretty happy with that.

Brion,

how does Otto's sling work? Do you hook the different openings onto something? Is he using the diamond knot like I am, like the Soft Halyard?

Also, I do not seem to be allowed to post attachments, thus the Flickr {ics. Is there a way to do it that I am missing?

Thanks,

Anton

First, to insert an image, you click on the insert image icon and give a web address where the picture is. It has to be a web address ending in jpg so I don't think you can use a flicker image. Google plus images work if you open them in a new tab and then use that url.

The issue Brion and I have with your reported results is that they are so far from our experience. Roughly a soft shackle is about line strength. Well, it may be higher than that and probably is but not double. Since the load is shared with two sides of the loop, that means that the strength of each end is somewhat above 1/2 of line strength. But you are seeing something close to line strength and breaking the line to prove it. That would mean that the string of diamond knots that are beyond the knot under load are increasing the strength considerably. Possible and if true something we want to understand as it may have implications for making soft shackles stronger. So we want to see pictures of your setup to see if anything pops out. You may have discovered something significant.

O.K., here it is!
Here is the Soft Halyard with extra Diamond Knots. It might not be clear, but the tails on the loop with stop knots end just out of the picture, and the other end of the line with the eye splice/shackle ("connector line") is about a foot long and has another eye splice on the other end. One end of the connector line gets put over a stop knot, the other goes to the hook on the scale, so as to pull it with the come-along.



Here is the test rig. Note that the "connector line" has been hooked to the s-hook on the scale, and the eye/shackle has been put on the last stop knot on the luggage tag which is attached to a bolt on the table.



Here are the results



Here's what they look like



Basically, out of 7 tests, 6 of them broke at the end of the bury in the splice and one of them reached almost 100%. After doing 20 splices in a row, they get much quicker, and I was making more of an effort on the taper, so they got better. Because I am lazy, and I was doing a lot of splices in order to just break them, I did not do any sewing or whipping on any of the splices. They would have to be sewed to stay in place under light loads.

On the first pull, the first diamond knot broke, at about 375Lbs, not sure why, but the rest of them lasted, all the way up to 500Lbs, and it was the first knot, rather than any of the ones closer to the loop. It may be that that particular diamond knot was not well made, or that it had suffered wear and tear from the last 10 test pulls wherein other parts of the assembly broke

I am convinced that the diamond knots farther from the loop are as strong as the ones closer to the loop, which is what I hoped to prove.

It occurs to me that I could build a soft shackle with multiple diamond knots to make it of adjustable size.

Yahooo! I did some more (oh, lord how much time do I have in it now?) looking around and found someone doing very much what I am about to do: use Amsteel for shrouds and forestay. A couple of people recommend against it because of constructional stretch and rebound, making it hard to rig and de-rig, but another says that he had minimal trouble, and said the same thing that I am imagining, which is that the boat is flexible (Prindle 19 catamaran) and that after using it for a while, I will be familiar with which diamond knot it needs to be set up to, I'll just rig it up at one setting and let is sit while I get on the wetsuit, put away the truck, etc., at which point, I put it into its final position. I figure I will have a large number of extra diamond knots to be able to account for a large variation in length. So I am now fully confident that it will at least work and be safe, though it might be more trouble than the SS rigging. Should not have problems with creep, it will not be rigged up too tight, and I got SK-78, which is the low creep Amsteel. Also, if I leave it rigged up, I can back it off one or two knots.

"The one thing I would say is that all woven dyneema products will have an initial mechanical creep associated with the construction and splices. Don't be suprised to take 100mm out of a 6m stay over the first couple of sails. once this is done it will be rock solid. The amount of time that a racing dinghy is tensioned up is negligible in the context of visco-elastic creep.
If you take the mast down and put it up again, the stay will recover some of that mechanical creep again, so will appear shorter on rerigging, but that beds back in quickly."

See here if interested:

http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/for...=11036&TPN=999

And here:

http://www.catsailor.com/forums/ubbt...t&Number=32225

On another note, this picture here shows a cascading deadeye adjustment/tightening system, and I had a brilliant thought!



I could use the idea that Essington posted a picture of to use as the anchor for the top part of the cascade system! One could use the deadeyes with a top pulley with a jam cleat to allow easy on the fly adjustment!

The thing that Essington posted is like the adjustable part of a whoopee sling, and according to another 18 hours on internet research (!) the likely strength reduction would be only 20%,and that is only where and if the tail end exits; it breaks like a badly done taper. If you just sleeve the line over the other one to have tail hanging off, it should not affect the strength of the main line, just the add-on, which, if it's only holding the low tension part of your cascade, should be way more than adequate.

Will have to test. Might use that system to make adjustable trapeze lines too....

Anton

Strength
 

Hi again,
Lots going on here. I think I finally have an idea of the configuration you have been testing, and it explains things I was confused about. What you have done is to put all the load onto the spliced eye, whereas in the shackle configuration it shares it. That's why the shackle breaks at 120 to 150%, and you can only get, by definition, 100%, assuming that you make all the diamonds correctly, with no slack between them on either leg. I think it will work fine for some applications.
Otto's is a kind of inside-out version of this, with one Diamond and a series of eyes, the latter formed by Brummels. The spacing between the Brummels is a snug fit for the Diamond. I haven't seen destruction test numbers for it, but it should be about as strong as yours, with the Diamond being the break point in his case.
As for taking up on deadeyes, welcome to traditional rigging. All you need is a scored fid to jam in the bottom deadeye so you can release the purchase without losing the tension. Note also that this method has twice the pull as hanging the tackle on a halyard or separate pendant, though you might have a challenge making a hitch that won't slip down the standing part.
Finally, I think Amsteel is the wrong material for standing rigging; too elastic, too weak, and too much constructional come and go.
By the way, have you found Yippee slings yet? Also known as Loopies.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

First off, if I understand correctly, Otto's thing is basically a soft shackle, but instead of using more diamond knots, he using multiple brummel loops to put them in. That would also be a good way to do it, and as I said, I could also do a soft shackle with multiple diamond knots, too. I am still thinking about the best way to do this.

The Yippie slings, or whoopee slings, are cool, and seem like they would have some good applications somewhere, don't know here yet, and taking a piece of line and putting it over the standing shroud would give a moveable attachment point for a block, or ring.

I did finally find a few people that have tried using Amsteel for standing rigging, and the reports are pretty mixed, but I did not find them until after I had bought material. I have been enjoying the splicing, and the line is cheap, so I haven't wasted much money, and if it works, it will be cool to have made it myself. I am also pretty tolerant of a little bit of fussiness, and it might work for me. I will report back when I have assembled it and have sailed it a bit.

Ill be back when I have something interesting to say ;-)

Anton

Hey, I had not thought of the whoopee sling much, but I think that might be a better way to adjust the shrouds than the way I am thinking of.

Change of plans...

Anton

But he should be getting 60-75% of line strength (half of what you get in a full shackle) and they should break at the knot. Therefore, his knots are stronger than one would expect with diamond knots. The multiple knots must be adding strength. Perhaps they make the load sharing better.

Allen

Not quite
 

Hi,
Actually, in the shackle, the standing part of the eye is doubled, while in the new configuration it isn't. That makes the single standing part weaker than the doubled-but-stress-risen Diamond knot side.
Fair leads,
Brion

In the shackle think of two sides. One is just straight doubled amsteel and carries half the load. The other side has the eye and the diamond knot. Each side has half the load of the shackle. If the shackle has 150% of line strength, each side has 75%. His setup is exactly the same as the half with the eye and the knot, except that he has more knots.

Another way to look at is that in the shackle the strength should be 400% but it is 150% and breaks at the knot so the knot is 37% efficient strength wise. In his setup, the knot has two strands so it should be .37 x 200% = 75% and should break before the end with the eye in it.

There is something else interesting going on here.

Allen

Nope
 

His setup is most definitely not exactly the same. In the shackle configuration, the eye side is twice as strong as in his version, because there are two standing parts in the shackle, thus 200% strength there. It would seem that the lanyard knot parts in both versions are stronger than a single part, but I would think not by much. If the knot didn't degrade the strength of the rope so much, the shackle would be much stronger, but as it is, the knot side of the new configuration is -- or should be, properly tied -- stronger than the single standing part of the spliced eye.
This would be easy to test, by making the eye of larger rope than the lanyard knot side, and measuring the break point of the latter.
I would also note that Anton deserves better test equipment to assess his innovation. Regarding this, please see accompanying new thread on the break test extravaganza.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

Agreed that the eye part is not as strong as in the half shackle but it is still as strong as line strength, or at least it should be close. But then again, it has a taper so perhaps it is an especially abrupt taper. I still contend that the knot should be 75% of line strength but if his tapers are abrupt and weaken the line more than to 75% and his calibration is off so that makes us think it is breaking at line strength.

Off to read the new thread... (can't find it, maybe it will show up later).

I was taking care to make long tapered splices, and got up to line strength on at least one break, and 90% on a lot of them. I was getting 75% when I wasn't taking much care of the tapers.

I bought that scale for $25, how could it be inaccurate? ;-)

I have a new idea; using something like a whoopee sling to make a cascading adjustable shroud with those new fangled friction rings, which would allow the whoppe sling splice part of it to only carry half the load, and use a bungee cord in the same way as the Constrictor jam cleat.

I will mock one up with my tiny line ('cause I'm too cheap to use big line) and break a couple of them and see what happens there.

If you are interested, I could try to do another test of the luggage tag with extra diamond knots using a stronger shackle to see what it takes to break it.

Anton

PS, please link to the new thread...