Early in my career as a driller, I thought I understood wire rope and its uses. I mean, what was there to understand? It seems simple: I pull the hoist lever and it winds up, if it is obviously damaged we replace it (when we have time), and if it is the right diameter it gets installed on the winch.
This changed after I took a class in crane operation one winter when work was slow. I found out why our winches did not always reave correctly. I learned how to determine if the rope we had was suited to the equipment. I learned that I really knew very little about wire rope. It is not the simplistic thing it appears to be. It is, in fact, a dynamic machine and, like all machines, requires a little knowledge to get optimal performance and safety.