[davidsamuelson]

Hi,

To answer Dan's question of why I decided to make a hardware-free snap shackle, the answer, as is nearly always the case: necessity is the Mother of invention

I am currently 7° from the equator and that means no, or very light wind. My genoa is a normal cruising sail: stainless ring at the clew plus many extra layers of cloth to beef it up; in a word, heavy. Add to that 2 polyester lines with knots and sometimes some water and the weight is too much for the sail to have any shape.
Then a racing friend of mine was talking of removing his masthead tricolour light, plus wiring, to have less weight aloft. I suggested getting rid of his halyard snap shackle since that probably weighed more than the light. Hence the soft snap shackle.

Your criticism of my soft snap shackle Dan - well noted. ( He says "The tight bend on the standing part spells weakness") This bend is probably no tighter than the bend it makes at the clew of the sail so now I have 2 weak spots instead of just one; does this make it less strong?

How much strength is lost if a 5mm line is bent around itself?

Thanks, David