Hank on sails are wonderful, and so is synthetic rigging! The problem is bronze hanks are a bit brash on the Dyneema and can lead to costly and early replacements of your headstays. The solution: soft hanks.
Soft shackles are notoriously large to allow them to loop around all sorts of items, making them very useful in all applications on a sailboat! The problem is when they are really big, they are also really long.
A bronze hank is roughly 2.25 inches long (internal length), meaning that the sail resides about 2 inches behind the stay.
To replicate this same position with soft hanks, the soft shackle needs to be made very small so that it will keep the luff of the sail close to the stay.
I made these soft shackles using 1/4” Dyneema and they are being tested on our next transatlantic voyage.
I will be keeping an eye on how these work out and reporting back on how they hold up!
