Hummingbird Hammocks recently sent me a prototype hammock to review and they gave me permission to “leak” this little snippet they created. They have been using a soft shackle design since they came out with their first hammock, but it has gone through some significant upgrades to improve performance and usability.
The new soft shackle uses a “button” style toggle that is much easier to use. Soft shackles are a lightweight alternative to a carabiner, to allow two loops to attach to each other, typically a Whoopie Sling to a hammock.
These soft shackles are built into the new hammocks from Hummingbird, but their designs are freely available thanks to their association with the Open Source Hardware movement.
Very nice – looks like a solid addition to our handy Amsteel toolbox!
Do they have any stress-testing published on the failure point? It seems like the “button” can be the breaking point, unless it functions more like the toggle of a Marlinspike.
It is a toggle, but there is always some stress on the toggle. I’d have to check their open source docs or ask directly about fail points.