Two Inches of Slack
On rigging a load that has to move, and why the tightest strap is the wrong one.
Every rigger says a version of the same thing: the strap you pull hardest is the one that fails. A load on a trailer moves — over a cattle grid, into a dip, under braking — and a strap with no give in it takes that movement as shock rather than as travel. Two inches of slack, taken up by a ratchet that can still turn, absorbs what a bar-tight strap transmits. It looks worse. It is the reason the load is still on the trailer at the other end.