[john hall]

Is rope considered appropriate for tying things down? We've used it for ages securing bales of hay and straw, never had a failure. The last Cadet I hauled home I left the winch cable on the front and tied the back with rope. Now when I tie with rope, we put a loop a couple feet from the standard hole on the trailer, run the rope thru that and back up through the loop. This way you can get it really tight. Yes I do have ratchet straps, but they were in my other truck. When we haul tractors (not lawnmowers) we use chains and load binders. I picked up a ratcheting load binder a while back for those loads that won't give enough to get a chain tight with a conventional binder.