General precautions and advice for winching safety

Winching Safety Advice

There is more to winch than just buying and installing it to your vehicle. The following information is sure to help you perform a successful winching operation.

Snatch Block

Next to the winch itself, the most important item to have on board is the snatch block.

Snatch Pulley blocks can double the power of your winch when used for self recovery during direct pulling (single line pull) and indirect pulling( angle line pulling) as desecribed below.

Choker Chain

A choker chain comes handy for even distributing the load on to the stuck vehicle. You can use your choker chain to attach it securely attached to both main frame rails of the stuck rig. After that connect the winch hook to the choker chain using the snatch block. The use of a spreader bar placed in the V of the chain, close to the vehicle, is recommended to prevent the frame rails from collapsing inwards during the pull.

Single line pull

This is just attaching the winch's hook to an anchor (tree, rock or vehicle) with either a D-ring shackle, tree saver strap, choker chain, snatch block or a combination of these and then using the winch to pull the vehicle free.

Precaution
Never ever attach the winch cable back onto itself. Always use a sling with a shackle when using a tree. Make sure you use a soft sling to prevent damaging the tree.

When you are pulling the rig, take care that the cable comes as straight as possible into the winch. This makes it easier to get the cable evenly wound on the drum. When it is not possible to do so, check the cable periodically that it is stacking up on the drum properly. Some times it becomes necessary to stop and rewind the cable on the drum to prevent the cable from over stacking or binding up in the winch housing, especially during long pulls.

Angle Pull

When something causes an obstruction preventing a direct pull, or when the winching vehicle cannot be positioned for a direct pull, an angle pull is used. A snatch block is very useful in this regard as it helps you to redirect the cable for the able pull. You can be very creative in how you rig an angle pull. The angle pull even allows you to pull another vehicle forward while you are behind.

Double Line Pull

A double line pull, is a little advanced type of winch rigging where the cable is run through a snatch block and back to the winching vehicle. As told to you earlier, the snatch block doubles the pulling power of the winch while halving the line speed of the winch. A double line pull is most often used when your winch does not have sufficient power to get your rig unstuck or when the rig you are trying to free is bigger than yours.

Advice

You can reduce stress on your rig by attaching the winch cable to an anchor point other than your rig. This way only half of the load is transmitted to your rig and the other half goes to the tree or rock that you anchored the winch cable while winching the stuck truck free.

Double Line Pull with Angle Pull

Sometimes you may require to combine the double line with an angle pull for pulling cumbersome heavy loads. Use the same anchor point for both the direction change snatch block and the winch cable. This combination gives you the benefits of both the double line and the angle pull. Note that you must use two snatch blocks for this combination pull to be effective.

Anchoring the Recovery Vehicle

To prevent your vehicle to be dragged towards the stuck rig while recovering the stuck vehicle, it is very important to anchor your vehicle properly. But while securing your rig to prevent this, never ever use the rear bumper or rear recovery points. This is a common mistake people often make and in the due course get frame of their vehicle damaged.

The tremendous power of a winch can stretch and pull your frame to disfigure it. To prevent damage to your frame, it is advisable to use two recovery points on the front of your rig and run the rigging under your vehicle and back to an anchor point.

Wire Rope

Make sure that the wire rope is correctly rated for the winch and the load, including any hooks or shackles it is attached to. Check the test certificates of the rope. Also check the attached hook. Make sure that it is capable of handling the load. The wire rope should be wound neatly onto the winch drum.

It is a good idea to use clamps on the wire rope but make sure that you use them in correct number type and size. Use at least 3 clamps which are spaced quite apart with the nuts on each clamp tightened equally.

Safety to others

Take care that everyone keeps away from any winching activity. However, in the case of a long distance pull when you may not see a person, it is a good practice to use a heavy blanket or jacket over the wire rope. The blanket serve as a visual warning so that the by-standers do not trip over it and in case a rope failure, act as a damper because of its weight and helps to prevent the broken rope from whipping.

Synthetic Winch Ropes

The use of non-wire or synthetic winch ropes is fast catching up with most of the off-roaders. Initially these ropes were employed for safety reasons, because when they broke their low mass caused them to drop to the ground, rather than hurting your hands. Other considerations were the easy handling and possibility of repair by splicing. Compared to the heavier wire ropes, the synthetic ropes had less effect on the vehicle handling .

However, there are a few disadvantages:

The synthetic ropes are quite expensive, costing about 3-4 times that of one of our wire ropes.

They cut easily and generally have poor resistance to abrasion.

They are sensitive to heat, with deterioration beginning at just 60C and can even melt with excessive drum heat or friction.

Under extreme loads they can generate even massive side loads.

Even if the of cost factor is neglected, you have to give much attention to other details and have to be very careful and practice before you start the handling synthetic rope.

Change the roller fairlead to a "hawse" type, as the frame of the roller fairlead can cut the rope. Then protect the rope from sharp or rough objects at all times.

Spooling of Synthetic Rope

To avoid the "log-splitting" effect and the consequential jamming, friction and excessive side load problems, avoid spooling the drum neatly and in a parallel fashion, as is recommended for wire ropes. The first layer should be put on under load (around 500kg) to capstan it on to the drum, all subsequent layers should be fed on tightly in a criss-cross manner so that each layer is at an angle of about 30 degrees to the layer below. This will prevent the upper layer from finding their way to the centre of the drum through the upper layers.


sIf you are just learning to winch, it is advisable that you start with a wire rope and change to synthetic when you are confident about various aspects of winching.

We hope the above safety advice would be of great use to you, to observe winch-safety to you as well as others.

 

Also take a look at other types of winches marketed by us. And read the following articles for further information on wiches:

Tips, Technical Information on Electric and Winch- safety Advice

Working of an Electric Winch

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