Training: While synthetic winch lines are much safer, recovery operations are still dangerous and we encourage all winch owners with steel or synthetic winch lines to attend safety and training classes from certified trainers such as: Bill Burke, Tom Severin, Bruce Elfstrom, Garrett Porter and others. See I4WDTA for more information.
Ease of Handling: Steel winch cables have a tendency to kink, rust, and have very sharp strands once nicked. They also tend to straighten by the nature of the material making them harder to spool back on the winch properly. Our synthetic winchlines have none of these problems. However, synthetic lines are more susceptible to sharp edges (bumpers in particular) and heat, but they are much stronger, safer and easier to work with.