Recovery gone wrong. Yes, rope can blast through a windshield!

joe98tj said:
I get when properly used there's a time and place for it but anyone else hate seeing people go at with these kinetic ropes? Its always someone that just keeps trying for a bigger and bigger running start till its too late. Feels like even if this guy did just hook the rope to the truck he was going to take it too far.
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I've been involved in several extrications where the only option was a kinetic rope. Bottom of a canyon, nothing but mud, no anchor points anywhere, my rig weighed the same as the Grand Cherokee buried to the bottom of the rockers all the way around. All the winch would do is get me muddy and drag my rig to them.

No one else was silly enough to ski down the muddy hill to where they were.

What should I have done?
 
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mrblaine said:
What should I have done?
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Called in a professional with a 5 ton 6x6, duh.

Like I said, when properly used, theres a time and place. But these videos are always people who arent properly using them and are just beating their vehicle up trying to get as big of a running start as they can, and before they know it a rope is slamming through their front windshield. Just cringey to watch.
 
mrblaine said:
I've been involved in several extrications where the only option was a kinetic rope. Bottom of a canyon, nothing but mud, no anchor points anywhere, my rig weighed the same as the Grand Cherokee buried to the bottom of the rockers all the way around. All the winch would do is get me muddy and drag my rig to them.

No one else was silly enough to ski down the muddy hill to where they were.

What should I have done?
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joe98tj said:
Called in a professional with a 5 ton 6x6, duh.

Like I said, when properly used, theres a time and place. But these videos are always people who arent properly using them and are just beating their vehicle up trying to get as big of a running start as they can, and before they know it a rope is slamming through their front windshield. Just cringey to watch.
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If it doesn't move, how much more running start do you get? I start with half the length and go more as needed. Lest we forget, it isn't as easy to accelerate in mud as we'd like it to be.
 
mrblaine said:
If it doesn't move, how much more running start do you get? I start with half the length and go more as needed. Lest we forget, it isn't as easy to accelerate in mud as we'd like it to be.
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It would be easier to know if they would rate them like they should instead of treating them like a regular rope.

They could give us a maximum energy input and then we could figure out how fast we could go with a vehicle weighing x lbs.

Instead they give us a breaking strength and a maximum stretch which is impossible for anyone to actually relate to how they're using it.
 
IMO the most important thing to do in extracting a stuck vehicle is to slow down, assess the situation and take your time. The quick way may not be the best way. A couple of yrs ago my son got one of our off road forklifts stuck in a sink hole at 2am. When he called me I told him to leave it there and call it a night. Luckily he took pictures so when I came back the next day I brought plenty of dunnage, bottle jacks, chain, shovels, 80’ of flat strap and patients. I hooked 80’ of strap to the ROP and did a side pull with my F250. Kinetic rope would have been useless as there is no control and as soon as the suction was released it would have laid on its side. I put rocks and dunnage under the tires to keep it level and used the jacks to jack the whole up placing more dunnage under the tires. I drove it out after about 2 hrs work by myself. Having been a commercial beekeeper I’ve had to pull many forklifts and big trucks out of the mud. Unfortunately it was a common occurrence they always seem to get stuck in the middle of the night.

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Yanking through a snatch block could have ended up much, much worse. Tying knots in synthetic line never goes well usually either.
 
freedom_in_4low said:
It would be easier to know if they would rate them like they should instead of treating them like a regular rope.

They could give us a maximum energy input and then we could figure out how fast we could go with a vehicle weighing x lbs.
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That math is beyond 99% of Americans but they would still kill and maim themselves with absolute confidence that they understand.
 
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freedom_in_4low said:
It would be easier to know if they would rate them like they should instead of treating them like a regular rope.

They could give us a maximum energy input and then we could figure out how fast we could go with a vehicle weighing x lbs.

Instead they give us a breaking strength and a maximum stretch which is impossible for anyone to actually relate to how they're using it.
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It would be impossible to calculate the force needed to unstick a vehicle buried to the rockers in mud. If you don't know that, then you have no way to calculate which of the 5 different diameters of rope to pick from out of your scientifically built recovery bag.
 
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mrblaine said:
It would be impossible to calculate the force needed to unstick a vehicle buried to the rockers in mud. If you don't know that, then you have no way to calculate which of the 5 different diameters of rope to pick from out of your scientifically built recovery bag.
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don't need to. I'm just talking about an actual strength rating that's at least as meaningful as the WLL on a shackle. For that all I need to know is the maximum speed I can carry into the kinetic recovery of an immovable object with my 4100lb vehicle to feel some relative level of safety that the rope isn't going to end up in the back of my head. A less-stuck vehicle would just leave more headroom, to be considered using experience-based judgement.

As it is, they give a breaking strength which is so meaningless they might as well not even publish it, because no one has any idea how much load they're applying in a kinetic situation.
 
freedom_in_4low said:
don't need to. I'm just talking about an actual strength rating that's at least as meaningful as the WLL on a shackle. For that all I need to know is the maximum speed I can carry into the kinetic recovery of an immovable object with my 4100lb vehicle to feel some relative level of safety that the rope isn't going to end up in the back of my head. A less-stuck vehicle would just leave more headroom, to be considered using experience-based judgement.

As it is, they give a breaking strength which is so meaningless they might as well not even publish it, because no one has any idea how much load they're applying in a kinetic situation.
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Are you a frequent user of kinetic ropes in that type of recovery?

What is the WLL of your winch? I mean since you brought up WLL on shackles.
 
steelhd said:
That math is beyond 99% of Americans but they would still kill and maim themselves with absolute confidence that they understand.
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the math of whether a 24,000lb kinetic rope is the right one is beyond 99.999999%. An energy rating could easily be put into a weight vs speed chart and posted as product specs. People that don't want it can ignore it.
 
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mrblaine said:
Are you a frequent user of kinetic ropes in that type of recovery?

What is the WLL of your winch? I mean since you brought up WLL on shackles.
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Don't know, winch manufacturers don't rate them by WLL, but should be generally safe to assume that a winch and mounting, if done per industry convention, would be solid up to its rated line pull. Everything else is easy though...i'd prefer my winch motor to stall before I exceed the capabilities of anything that can fly.

Back on the kinetic rope though, I'm not suggesting anybody bring a slide rule to a recovery and do a bunch of math. I'm just saying that the industry could make it easier to compare and select the right rope as well as know a little about how to use it and what to expect, which right now they can only learn by watching YouTube or just finding out in what may be a dangerous situation.
 
freedom_in_4low said:
Don't know, winch manufacturers don't rate them by WLL, but should be generally safe to assume that a winch and mounting, if done per industry convention, would be solid up to its rated line pull. Everything else is easy though...i'd prefer my winch motor to stall before I exceed the capabilities of anything that can fly.

Back on the kinetic rope though, I'm not suggesting anybody bring a slide rule to a recovery and do a bunch of math. I'm just saying that the industry could make it easier to compare and select the right rope as well as know a little about how to use it and what to expect, which right now they can only learn by watching YouTube or just finding out in what may be a dangerous situation.
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The energy input will be a function of mv^2 + energy applied after peak velocity. The first part is easy. In most kinetic rope use cases traction is poor so the 2nd part may be pretty small. But it is a complication.
 
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