How many knots do you know/use?

[peds]

Radium release hitch is a pretty fun thing to have in the tool kit. A pair of pears and a few metres of 8mm.

 

 

Used for taking the strain off a system to pass a knot through a device or to switch a load onto a different rope.

[AHPP]

Someone said highwayman's hitch. I used to have a double pulley set up on a 15m ish bit of 6/7mm that I used as a retrievable redirect for double rope. Very satisfying.

[Steven P]

For the truckers hitch (I was told it was wagoneers hitch, same thing though), it is a pulley system without the pulleys - handy to know. Where the pulling rope doubles back on itself you can often hold that in place with the thumb while you tie it off with the other hand. 

 

Anyway point I was going to make, depending on the rope, daisy chaining them together I've found that the first /earlier hitches can double back too tightly and bind the rope if you add more anchored to the same point. If possible I'll have an anchor point for each hitch to so that the pulling end isn't doubled back too tightly. Remembering that the same force applies at each end, I've known a single anchor to pull out before what I to tension fails. 

 

Tended to think something like each additional hitch doesn't double the available force due to frictions, only adds something like half as much again.

 

Dead handy though.

[Matthew Norman]

I know quite a decent amount of knots, as one of my hobbies includes decorative nautical knotwork/marlinspike, and I often go thorugh Ashley's Book Of Knots lookcing up the history of knots and splices. 

 

Day-to-day though I use only a handful, including:

• Bowline / running bowline
• Bowline on a bight
• Alpine butterfly (with bunny ears) for SRT canopy anchor
• Quick hitch
• Clove hitch
• 2 round turns and 2 half hitches

I used to often use VT and other friction hitch variants, but these have been replaced by mechanical devices. I could still tie 3-knot system, Blake's hitch, tautline hitch etc if needed, and the trucker's hitch has been replaced by ratchet straps. 

[Joe Newton]

10 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

 

You make a loop, lay it on the rope.

make a turn round the loop, then (and this is the key) make a second turn INSIDE the first one.

just shake to undo.

 

IMG_3501.mov

Not sure I'd trust that knot for pulling back leaners over with the tractor away from power lines.

 

The bowline on a bight takes the same amount of time to tie and can't slip at all. 

 

We all use what we're comfortable with though. 

[daltontrees]

4 hours ago, AHPP said:

 

The farmer's knot/circus bowline that I've just learned to tie and will probably use for midline winch attachment is going to be a bugger to apply this rule to. What a horrible shape.

Can't have everything!

It looks very close to being an alpine butterfly and has a directional aspect to it. And looks horrible. I'd be learning the alpine butterfly if I was you. It is an easy visual check

[AHPP]

1 minute ago, daltontrees said:

Can't have everything!

It looks very close to being an alpine butterfly and has a directional aspect to it. And looks horrible. I'd be learning the alpine butterfly if I was you. It is an easy visual check

 

Alpines seize with any weight. 

[daltontrees]

2 minutes ago, AHPP said:

 

Alpines seize with any weight. 

My first uses of it was glacier crossings, it only had to take one body weight. Haven't used it for big pulls. Maybe I have to revisit.

Looking at it closely it seems to be in effect an alpine butterfly in one direction of pull but with an extra buffer in the other direction.

[daltontrees]

Just now, daltontrees said:

My first uses of it was glacier crossings, it only had to take one body weight. Haven't used it for big pulls. Maybe I have to revisit.

Looking at it closely it seems to be in effect an alpine butterfly in one direction of pull but with an extra buffer in the other direction.

Add i just tried it, I managed to collapse it by pulling it in the 'wrong' direction'. Almost impossible in the other direction, though.

[AHPP]

This is why people use a bowline on a bight. They just work. 

 

I've been wanting a midline knot that can take a heavy pull and still untie and where the tail flows nicely towards the anchor so it can capture progress and have enough strength through the knot to withstand a winch failure. It's nothing you can't do with a bowline and another rope but then you need another rope.