Hi Tony,
Good info once again :thumbsup:
Just to add a bit from my experience, from previous employment with Army, carrying out repairs and annual load tests of winches and cranes. The safety factor of winch ropes was 2:1, where as lifting equipment it is 5:1.
Despite thoroughly inspecting ropes before functional testing winch to check and adjust the cut outs, it was not unknown for ropes to fail. This could be due to stress on a previous use, which will not be visible to the eye, and breakage could occur at well under the working load limit.
Once, before I took on the testing, I saw where an AEC 10 tonner cargo undergoing a cut out test, had broken a rope at the vehicle end, the rope had launched back to the anchor point and was hanging in a nearby tree, placing a blanket on the rope would have been of no use at all.