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The lifty zipline. Alex Purser (@alex_purser) • Instagram photo WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM 22 likes, 3 comments - alex_purser on November 25, 2021: "A pragmatic and very useful #norwegianreeve...

Not often. The most useful application I've found is for a lifty zipline. Othwerwise just little hacks like grabbing something under tension if you need to reset a winch or anchor or something, spider leg balancer, hanging several branches like mackerel feathers. The klemheist is the grabbiest of the prussiks. Doesn't release nicely like a springy VT.

When and how do you use rigging prussiks?

This more or less, plus reef knot for sending up another line to a climber

Well that's just a nasty thing to say, and you are at serious risk of hurting my feelings, professor. Edit: anyway, maybe you should have carried on with your studies, and become a Latin teacher. Seeing as they are an endangered species now.

Best solution for two ropes welded together after a big load/heavy pull: reef knot with a fisherman either side of it. Game changer for me.

@peds I'll just bite my thumb at you and hope the pool guy replenishes the chlorine in your gene pool.

You could try the small claims , cost me £50 but the customer paid me straight away after being threatened with court action and a possible ccj, the customer was a doctor and obviously didnt want any publicity.

My climbing systems are all pulleys and VTs (or something very close if anyone's going to be a purist for what crosses over, what crosses under etc). Never bothered learning the distels, michoachans etc because a VT always works well enough. If I cobble up a rope tail, hip thrusting type system, it's probably a tautline hitch or something like one. Just whatever grabs on whatever rope is in my hand. English prussik if I have a loop. Bowline with a steel biner for most rigging. If no biner, usually a daisy chain hitch. Otherwise clove, cow or even a round turn and two half hitches. Whatever is proving easiest to untie for whoever is on the ground or just whatever feels right when the rope hits the wood. Bowlines on bights midline. Rigging prussiks usually end up being a klemheist. Progress captures french/VT or english. Just whatever works with whatever bit of tat I have in my hand. Cow or timber for base tie choking or rings/pulleys up trees. Running bowline if I'm short on tail. Cloves for pulling ropes through with throwlines. I think that's mostly it. I probably make up others or just use wraps, boat cleat type hitches round stubs etc on the go. All very jazz. The one knot I really should learn is something for joining two ropes for heavy winch pulls etc that unties easily, probably a zeppelin bend.

Thanks, I will, I'll keep it subtle from my side, Einstein. 👍

A bowline can and does undo itself if loaded, unloaded, loaded, unloaded etc., unless rethreaded or given a Yosemite finish, or given a massive tail (very useful sometimes) but then it isn't a bowline, it's a bowline with extra steps. An 8, once tied (correctly...), is an 8 until you undo it. So if it's a knot to be used, unweighted, ignored, used again, unweighted, left alone for a while, used... etc... an 8 is miles better, in my humble opinion. A bowline will take a 3 way load, though (that is, up the rope, on the loop, and down the tail...), so you can have something on the bowline loop itself, then a massive tail with whatever you want tied on to it as well. You can even chain loads of bowlines one after the other, without weakening the rope; whereas a fig8 must not do this unless you've got an isolation loop followed by another 8 (or a different knot. A bowline maybe?). So they both have their place, and there are places where one knot cannot replace the other.

Apologies, image not too sharp. Sent by a member of the Lochnagar crater association on the Somme. The hawthorn and other small trees around the crater is infested with these caterpillars. What species are they? Thanks Stuart

@peds you can try the subtle underhanded name calling all you wish. Whilst I'm no wonderkin, I've enough years of education, one below the wall art they call a degree and I even studied to be a teacher.

When and how is a fig 8 better? Not arguing just curious.

A fig8 instead of the bowline for a lot of your applications, probably, but I still see the value in a bowline. The 8 is better in some instances, the bowline better in others.

Lolwut? Do you think there's a finite supply of Latin teachers? They didn't stop making them at the fall of the Roman Empire, and we've been running through the stock ever since... History teachers often double up, as do other humanities, to a lesser extent, as do other language teachers, also to a lesser extent. I know of one biology teacher who also taught Latin. There may be others. I didn't want to sink to this level, but seeing as you are already down there with your opening statement, why the hell not. Many schools offer Latin only to the more academically gifted students. Maybe there's a reason you aren't aware of the availability of Latin in schools across the country.

Though to be honest, saying "I did this as an extra subject" sets you ahead of the crowd regardless of where the ££ to pay for it came from, and if the boy is interested now then I think he should be encouraged. Certainly do more courses later in life, but I don't know his aspirations - might be a university or college course when that extra GCSE at 16 will be a bonus to get in.

I can’t see it personally. But not a hill worth dying on. Any knots you use that perform a different task to the ones I posted?

Harder. Especially on bigger, vertical timber when the wraps droop and you have to visualise what crosses over what. Less of a difference on a 6" branch.

A clove hitch is hard to learn?

The Circus Bowline is a midline alternative to the Alpine, yes, but the Trucker's Hitch is for mechanical advantage

Couple of half hitches, much like you'd put on a clove anyway. Comes undone easier. Easier to tie on large diameter stuff. Easier to learn I'd say too.

its good for tying on blocks and capstans, with a couple of half hitches for back up, much easier and quicker than a timber hitch, i find a clove hitch on rigged timber hard to undo.

In a way, that illustrates my point. The cow hitch is a defective cousin of the clove hitch, there isn’t any advantage to it over a clove hitch. No1 being that it undoes under pressure.

Oh yes!!!