How strong is the sheath vs the core of a climbing rope? The sheath is there to protect the rope from abrasion, but does it take some of the load? How much?? The core broke at 10.57kN, and the sheath broke at 4.78kN. This adds up to the ~14kN that we normally see breaking this rope fig 8 to fig 8 (knots break in a huge range fyi) Get cores and sheaths at https://hownot2.com/ *some dis-assembly required | How NOT 2