Safely Using a Snatchem Strap

[chester]

I know what it's like when something goes wrong when snatching.

When i was younger i got my mavrick bog good and proper,so we hooked up the snatch strap to the hook on the front of mine and over the towball of my of my mate's 40 series shorty,yes i know dumb,we were young and thought we knew best,admit we've all done it.

Anyway he could'nt get me out so we hooked a 75 series tray to the front of him,had two trying to get me out.

After a few pulls there was a bang on the windscreen piller on my side,i landed on the wife's lap i thought it was just the strap hitting the front,i got out to have a look and seen the big dent in the piller at the same time my mate seen that the ball had not snapped but the whole tounge had snapped off.

After a look around we found it 10 metre's behind me buried into the hill had to dig it out,that night when i washed it i found a bigger dent on the front of the bonnet right where it rolls,it was directily inline with my seat we reckon the ball has hit it and deflected of the right slighty.

Learnt a very valuble lesson that day and have never done it since.

[Silver]

Just yesterday on the inside track on Bribie a bloke in a nice cruiser was keen to drop a snatch strap over the towball on a RAV 4. Standard tow tongue, not hayman reece style.

We had done a fair bit of spade work, and it might have been ok. Or not.

Took a bit of talking to get them to wait until 04OFF Steve bought along his towball spanner, lump hammer and shackle. Perhaps still not ideal, but a step up from the tow ball. As Steve said, his yet to be acquired winch would have given more control.

What was interesting was that this bloke had a nicely turned out rig, yet what we see as the basics were news to him - likewise the frailty of the front loops on the RAV. At one point he was talking about hooking one RAV to the other and pulling them both out at once. The RAV blokes were new to it all - and ran over the strap etc - would have been a nightmare with a recovery train I think!