Is a winch hook safer pointing up, or pointing down?

There’s a lot of Receieved Wisdom in any sport or recreation, and one thing you often hear is:

“Always rig so the winch hook points up”

Now this sounds logical, but sometimes theory doesn’t work out in practice, and sometimes even if it does, it’s not worth it.

So I was pretty happy that Factor 55 have made this short video proving the point, and it also shows how strong soft shackles are.

And on the subject of things that are hard to believe…