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Soft shackles are very strong. I have said they are as strong as the line they are made of. But that strength is giving away a lot of the raw strength of the line and assumes a knot that is only 25% efficient. The geometry of a soft shackle has a theoretical strength of 400% of the line strength. It is the diamond knot that always breaks and this is an attempt, untested as I write this, at making a stronger version of a soft shackle. It is based on a hybrid knot that I developed for my main halyard. That knot was tested and was quite strong failing because of a construction shortcut rather that at the knot but at a still impressive 70% efficiency. The goal of this version would be to exceed twice the strength of the line that the soft shackle is made of. The limit may be the eye which has a bend radius of about 2x, higher than the normal soft shackle which can be as low as 1x. This would limit the strength to about 65% which would give the shackle about 2.5 line strength.

Following are the instructions for making a soft shackle out of 7/64 Amsteel. You can use the calculator to scale this to other sizes.

	Cut a length of line, in this example 28 inches and pass one end through the center of the line making a loop. I used 24 inches in doing this tutorial and it wasn't enough
	About an inch for each end, mark every other pair, one right hand stand, one left hand strand, until you have marked half the strands. Pull these out from the braid and cut them off. For 8 strand, cut off 4, for 12 strand, cut off 6.
	Make two marks on the longer of the two strands. One 2 inches from the eye, one 4 inches. These numbers will be different for larger diameter Amsteel and for larger finished diameter shackles but this is just what I did. Take a folded over section of 0.040 stainless rigging wire folded in half and pass it from the mark furthest from the eye and exit the mark closest the eye. Place 1/2 the tapered section of the other strand and pull it through to make a body for the shackle. You might want to do a pass through first as is shown for the other soft shackles, but in this example I did not.
	Here is what it looks like after you pass the one strand thought the other.
	Fold the two ends back toward the shackle
	Make two loops with both strands around the body of the shackle.
	Using the wire fid, pull both ends back through the loops. Tighten the knot.
	Pull the body of the shackle down the knot so that the eye is just about to enter the knot. You want enough of the single strand showing after the knot to have a reasonable bury length for the next step. The shackle I am making in these photos is not long enough and when I tried to tighten the knot, the splices came out. I would suggest a bury length of between 21 and 28 diameters.
	Insert the wire fid in each of the single strands, one at a time, and exit as close to the knot as you can. Then pull the tapered ends through. This picture shows one strand has been pulled through and the other is about to be pulled through. Dress the lines then pull a bit extra of out of what is sticking through and cut it off so that when you dress it again, it is buried. Cut at an angle.
	Here is the shackle after the ends have been dressed and cut off.
	Pull on the eye and then pull very hard to bring the buried section into the knot. Then pull hard again. I use a vice to hold a rod that I put the eye. The picture at the left is not the shackle that this description is about but rather the first one I made. The bury should be the length of the red line in this photo.

This shackle needs testing. If it works, I will re-do this page and post it on L-36.com.

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