Is a thimble needed with soft shackle?

[EmeraldCoastSailor]

Although it never failed me, I replaced my aged galvanized anchor hook snubber arrangement with a dyneema soft shackle connected to the loop in a nylon dock line. The anchor hook, shackle, and thimble of my old arrangement would not pass over the anchor roller forcing me to either use a boat hook to pull chain to me or reach way forward over bow and under pulpit to attach. And the anchor hook would hit fiberglass about half the time when I detached it from chain. Only downside to new arrangement as I see it is the possibility of a fumble and dropping the shackle.

Do I need to protect the nylon snubber line with a thimble? My current plan is to simply monitor it for chafe.

Kudos to this excellent video re how to make your own soft shackles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWz_DIXx-Wc

[Benz]

While a thimble can't hurt, and there's very inexpensive non-marring ones made of nylon or plastic, you'll be fine just putting the shackle right into the snubber. I suspect the snubber will wear out in other places long before it wears at the shackle.