The Most Useful Rope Knots for the Average Person

http://www.layhands.com/Knots/Knots_SingleLoops.htm

by gnosis • 17 years ago

136 49 17 years ago

yan4• 17 years ago

I had to learn a lot of these knots for rock climbing (and their numerous variations) and I find myself using them in 'normal' life too. Knowing a few crucial knots (learn the bowline and a few variations, seriously) is a great skill to have.

mattiss4• 17 years ago

Knowing how to tie a few useful knots is surprisingly empowering. Cinch things down, strap things to your backpack, hang a tarp, fix broken items, etc. etc.

I highly recommend learning to rock climb or sail as you will most definitely use the knots you learn on a regular basis.

yan4• 17 years ago

I've been a climber for a bit over two years and am looking to get into sailing. Other then volunteering to help out during races, do you know of any other cheap ways to get into the sport/pastime?

gaius• 17 years ago

Dinghies or offshore?

URSpider944• 17 years ago

Where do you live? In Boston, for example, there's Community Boating, where you can get out on the water for a couple hundred dollars per season and learn with peer-to-peer instruction.

mattiss4• 17 years ago

Go to your city's rec center. They offer courses for under 200 bucks that will show you the ropes (no pun intended (ok pun intended)).

niels• 17 years ago

The easiest way is to join a sailing club, if there is one nearby. They often have a sailing school and boats you can borrow. Alternatively you can buy a cheap dinghy.

krschultz4• 17 years ago

Crew for someone else. I have had 10-15 people come out for their first days with me in the last 3 years. My suggestion is to find the local clubs and just shoot off emails saying you are looking to start sailing and wondering if any boats need crew.

derwiki• 17 years ago

Not to mention survival situations. Not that it's something that happens on a daily basis, but did that stop you from learning CPR?

The double bowline is really useful to throw to someone as a rescue harness if you need to pull them up something, and being able to tie a one-handed bowline is useful if you need to tie a rescue harness around yourself.

(Boy Scouts ftw)

albertsun• 17 years ago

There's far too many there for someone not dedicated to knots to actually bother learning. A few good ones to start with would be the bowline, reef knot, figure eight knot, fisherman's knot, clove hitch and trucker's hitch.

For everyday use in tying things together so they don't fall apart and other odds and ends they are probably the most useful and easiest to learn.

Of course, if you rock climb, or sail, etc. there are different knots to learn.

HeyLaughingBoy• 17 years ago

In a previous life I was a Merchant Marine officer cadet. Had to take tests for some of these knots without looking (given a choice of blindfolded or with hands behind back) and with 3-5 second time limits depending on knot. The point being of course that seamen often need to tie knots rapidly, in complete darkness or in less than convenient positions.

I still find it amusing that there is a Federal agency (US DOT) that requires that an applicant pass a knot tying test as part of a set of license exams :-)

URSpider944• 17 years ago

Check out http://www.realknots.com/knots/ for a more thorough list. On my short list, I would recommend:

-- the bowline, for putting a slip-free loop around something -- two half hitches, for putting a cinching loop around something -- the clove hitch, for tying a rope to a pole or other cylindrical object

Start with those three, tied properly, and you can do a lot.

naish• 17 years ago

I would add a couple of other useful hitches: the taut-line and trucker's. Along with the bowline, I use these constantly for attaching adjustable-length lines to things and securing items to vehicles.

dhimes• 17 years ago

They are both a part of my repertoire also. The trucker's offers a great "quick and dirty" mechanical advantage for tying things down on your car, on your boat (my mast when I trailer it, for instance); heck I even use it to tie down my trash-can lids to keep the animals from getting into the trash (raccoons, not bears!).

tomsaffell• 17 years ago

I'd 2nd the bowline - very useful knot. I was once forced to learn to tie a bowline behind my back - seemed fairly useless at the time, but then a few months ago I had to tie something onto the back of the wetsuit that I was wearing - to my amazement I did it first time - muscle memory is an amazing thing.

I also 2nd the truckers' hitch.

And remember: if you can't tie knots, tie lots

dimview3• 17 years ago

Why does everyone likes bowline so much when eskimo bowline or kalmyk loop (http://dimview.org/knots/) is much better?

Aegean• 17 years ago

Sorry if I am being negative here, but isn't this off topic?

mcantor• 17 years ago

I downvoted you; this is why:

1. Your post apologizes for itself. This is offensive to both the reader and the writer.

2. You seem to have not read the very first point in the guidelines. I am reproducing them here for convenience:

What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

This submission is clearly gratifying to intellectual curiosity, being a primer for a presumably esoteric but actually highly useful skillset, and it does not stumble into the territory of politics, crime, sports, or animal pictures.

How is it off topic?

pasbesoin• 17 years ago

It's been years since I studied any knots. The ones I continue to use regularly and to great (personal) effect:

    slip
    square
    double half hitch
    bowline
    barrel  (combine the ends of two equal (esp. equal diameter) ropes)
    figure eight
    (and, I suppose, whatever it's called that I use for shoelaces)
    Gordian (mostly metaphysical applications  ;-)

jksmith• 17 years ago

A mandatory requirement for being alive includes at least knowing how to tie a bowline.

crux_2• 17 years ago

The knots I use all the time: Figure 8 (climbing, mostly), clove hitch (pretty much anything), truckers' hitch. (Pretty much anything as well.)

Also helpful in everyday life are coiling / stacking skills you pick up when working with rope. For example, my headphone cords are never tangled. ;)

pyre• 17 years ago

I'm interested in what knots/skills you use to do things like keep your headphone cords untangled.

crux_2• 17 years ago

I usually simple butterfly coil w/ wrap finish around my index + ring ringers. There's a bunch of different approaches people use; the general ideas of not introducing twists (not a big deal for short cables) and finishing with a wrap are more important than any One True Way.

Specific to headphones and other cords: avoid introducing sharp bends as well -- cheap cords will eventually short out. (For me, I try to have a fairly fat "bundle" before I do the wrap, and don't pull it too tight.)

billswift4• 17 years ago

Use a figure-8. It's easy to tie and untie and it doesn't have any sharp bends to risk kinking the wire.

billswift4• 17 years ago

You need to be careful with clove hitch, it's a great knot, but it can fall off if the rope gets slack.

gnosis• 17 years ago

My favorite knots:

  ** adjustable grip hitch

    an easy to tie and very reliable noose-type knot
    for when you need to adjust frequently

 ** zepplin bend

    a very reliable way of joining ropes that's
    also easy to tie and untie (but won't slip apart
    on its own)

 ** double constrictor knot

    grips anything you tie it around **very tightly**, exceptionally secure

 ** icicle hitch

    when you know the direction of pull is going to be
    mostly parallel to what you're tying your rope to,
    then this knot grips even tighter
    than the double constrictor.
    
    useful for when hanging something from a vertical,
    slippery cylinder (hence the name)

  ** ashley stopper knot

    a bulky knot useful for when you don't want the end
    of your rope to slip out

  ** alpine butterfly

    an easy and secure way to tie a loop in the bight

mahmud• 17 years ago

Where is the Politician's Noose? that would be the most useful, imo.

JCThoughtscream• 17 years ago

Knots! One of the few things about the Boy Scout program that I still remember and find useful. Much gratitude for posting this link.

heyitsnick• 17 years ago

I went on a 2-year sailing trip with a friend. I'd never been aboard a boat up until the month we left, but before I left I spent a long time cramming myself with information. One was the knots, of course, and I learnt dozens of combinations and knew the pro's and con's of each knot, their breaking points, what to use with wet ropes, etc.

Over the 2 year sailing trip, of the dozens I learnt, I used 5 in total:

- The bowline - One hitch (round turn and two halfs) - Two bends (fishermans, figure of eight) - One stopper (figure of eight)

Now back on land, I still use these 5 frequently, and the bowline daily. In a jam, you can use the bowline to do anything (even two of them to bend 2 ropes). It doesn't jam, is fine when wet, is ~60% as strong as the rope itself, and you can trust it with your life.

krschultz4• 17 years ago

This list is way too complicated.

Simply know 5 knots and you are there.

Bowline - used whenever you want to tie a rope to an object with a loop at the end of the line. Really strong knot, but you can't tie it under tension so you won't get a perfect length if you are trying to tie something down. If you don't know what to tie, this is probably it.

Hitch - This is when you want to tie a rope around an object but the length matters or there is tension in the rope when you go to tie the knot. Useful in another 20% of situations. If you are tying something down I put a bowline on one side first since the length doesn't matter, and a hitch on the other since you will have tension in the line and want to tie it off with that tension in tact.

Know how to put a loop in the middle of a line. You can use the loop as a way to get extra tension in your line.

Figure eight stopper knot - whenever you need to keep a knot from going through something else. Not always obvious when it is useful.

Know how to properly tie the end of one line to the end of another.

If boating, also know how to tie a line to a cleat.

I've been boating/sailing my entire life, rock climbing for a few years too. Never needed to know more than that. Better to know 6 knots perfectly so that in an emergency you can literally do them with your eyes closed or not looking, than to know 15 and try to find the perfect one for some specific situation.

billswift4• 17 years ago

Hitch is a general term for a knot for attaching a rope to an object: I know of dozens of totally different hitches. Half-hitches, clove hitch, taut-line hitch, timber hitch; are all ones I can tie right off the top of my head with no review; and there are others I have forgotten details of like the camel hitch and pipe hitch. using the correct hitch is important; some slip in situations where another can hold well.

Bowline is the only real loop making knot I use. Bends are for connecting two ropes: the most common is the square knot, and its variation with loops used for tying shoes, but the sheet bend is more generally useful since it can connect ropes of 2 different sizes, where square knots slip badly, and it is easier to untie; there are also more specialized bends that I have occasionally used.

If you have been boating and rock climbing with your apparently limited knowledge, you have been lucky. Start with a few knots, then add to them as needed, it's not hard to learn dozens of very useful knots and hitches, as long as you don't try to do it all at once.

Useful and ornamental ropework is a fascinating craft, which should appeal to hackers looking for something different to do, it can be both practical and good looking. The linked article mentions Ashley's Book of Knots which is a good reference, but Hervey Garrett Smith's "The Arts of the Sailor: Knotting, Splicing, and Ropework" has better descriptions for getting started and Graumont & Hensel's "Encyclopedia of Knots and Fancy Rope Work, 3rd ed" is the most complete reference.

billswift4• 17 years ago

My bad, I named the wrong book by Smith. "The Arts of the Sailor" is okay, but I meant "Marlinspike Seamanship" as the best one for learning.

JshWright• 17 years ago

I don't get the fixation with the bowline... it's harder to tie than a figure 8, and not as strong.

Learn the figure-8 family (on a bight, follow-through, double loop, etc), and you'll know enough knots for almost any situation.

On a bight it gives you a solid attachment point in the middle of a rope (tie a double loop if your life is gonna depend on it), Use a follow through around an object if you need to tie a hitch (also worth knowing a alternative like a clove hitch). A figure 8 bend is a _very_ secure way to attach two ropes together (again, also worth learning a simpler alternative like the becket bend).

Once you've got the figure 8 mastered, pick up a couple more complex knot "systems" (trucker's hitch, tensionless hitch, etc).

There are plenty of neat knots out there for specific situations, but for general purpose knot tying, nothing beats the figure 8 family.

Obligatory "here's why I think I'm an expert" blurb: I've been climbing since I was 10, and am a New York State certified rope rescue technician.

laut• 17 years ago

Bowline is used for mooring boats. One of the characteristics is that it's easy to untie.

krschultz4• 17 years ago

That is one of the differences between sailors and rock climbers. The "base" knot for sailors is generally the bowline and for climbers the figure 8. I think it has to do with priorities.

In rock climbing your loads are pretty defined. So the ropes are sized appropriately and the knots are the weakness. You care about the strength of a knot, the stronger the knot the thinner the line you can carry.

On a boat, that isn't really the priority. I have lines from 1/32" up to 2.5" on my boat. I don't really know the exact loads on anything and they are always changing. So all of the lines have a huge factor of safety, like 3-5x more than it needs. The strength of the knot matters little.

But what does matter is speed. I can tie a bowline in under 2 seconds and figure 8 in under 2 seconds easily, if i'm using both hands. But if I'm using one hand, well it takes me a hell of a lot longer with the figure 8 than the bowline. There are a lot of situations where that might happen. For me it usually arises in emergencies. Am I laying on the deck reaching to tie a knot with one hand while holding on with the other? Or am I tieing a knot around a towing post while the line is starting to get taught? Am I holding onto a sail while trying to tie it off because a shackle broke?

Those are the times that the ease of tieing and the speed of getting it done out weigh the benefits of the figure 8. They both have their place but doing both sports I think culturally thats why people know what knots they know.

The Most Useful Rope Knots for the Average Person

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