"softies"

I haven't seen a discussion of these yet, but was wondering what people's experience with them has been. They are exceedingly easy and cheap to make. they sell for 29$ but you can make them yourself for about 1.50 worth of line.

what is it?

kinky. The G.F. and I typically use just the regular gimp ball, with the leather strap. I would think that would give you a serious case of cotton mouth in a hurry. Hard to sanatize too.

"What is it?"

okay, what applications would you envision using a "softie"

Supposedly these replace metal shackles, 5000lb. breaking force but what about chafe?

You could actually replace all the shackles on your boat with them. Those few ounces of SS are clearly keeping me out of first place
I like making things and they are easy to make and cheap.

tim... not so good with chafe really but if you keep an eye on them you would have to go through 10 or so softies to equal the price of one shackle (yes, only 12 bucks or so. I figure the hassle isn't worth it for any significant possibility of chafe.)

off the top of my head... could replace the shackle at the outhaul for the main, could make good quick tie offs for the spin bridles, jib halyard shackle, dowhaul shackle (if you use one to connect the downhaul line to the eye on the mast), even the shackles holding your mainsheet blocks to the traveler and to the clew of the main if you don't already use a quick release shackle.

here it is used as a hank

Bracelet or dog collar.

Read the advertisement he posted up above.

They recommend using it on...get this, spinnaker sheets... to keep the weight down. Seems there are better ways than using one of these or a steel shackle on a spin clew.

another possible benefit is that you can cut them if necessary.



and they float

I use one attaching my jib, extremely simple to make and D12 is very light as well.
Another reason I use them is because I'm afraid a regular shackle might damage the rest of the bridle hardware.

The capricorn uses something similar for the downhaul.

Précourt's are better as far as I'm concerned. I have more trust in Erik's toggle than in the knot in a very low friction line...

I've been using the Précourt softhanks for awhile now, and besides, Erik P. is a nice guy who does good business. And is himself a Farrier trimaran guy.

I used line to tie off my forestay on the g-cat until I went to a roller furling jib. I loved to tie off the forestay you had the ultimate adjustment on mast bend and rig tension; you know that place between the two holes on the forward tang that you always wish you had.