My favorite bend is the Rosendahl Bend because I re-invented it and published it in 1967. I published in a local caving club newsletter. ...
Okay - wow...
All righty then, so now we have Bob Thrun pre-dating the 1976 Boating magazine article.
Bob claims he 're-invented' it in 1967 and published it in a caving club newsletter.
What are the chances of tracking down a copy of this newsletter from 1967?
Dan, do you have any ties/connections to caving clubs?
Better, I have a copy of the newsletter(s),
which are in the 1st case UNdated (Vol. IX? #7)
and in a followup correction/note --Bob was upset
that his drawings were replaced w/editer's (which
look good, IMO!)-- the info is "Vol. IX (whatever)
#8 and dated December 1966 --sic : '66' (perhaps
date of receipt was in the next year, but I doubt
that the publishing was all so fouled that it was
in fact '67 that Bob got it and yet the newsletter
carried '66 as a date. (The follow-up issue though
did try some sort of catch-up, reading "#8-12" as
though sweeping up a supposed monthly for 1966
in one fell soup?!))
Bob's "re-inventing" presumed some prior inventing
about which we, well, have some doubts.
And I now have some less then fully certain feeling
that then Adm. R. meant that he knew nothing about
the >>knot<< vs. about its being named for him!?
The latter is IMO a longer stretch, but possible; he might
have said more, afterall, if he knew zilch about it
AND considering Giles's opinion that regardless of
the name, the very
function/nature of the knot
didn't well fit the supposed application !?
(And in re-reading the Paynes' article, they have it
that Joe Collins asserted that the knot was to be used
ALL OVER, not only for mooring. And THIS sounds a
bit odd in not allowing of some hitch or eye knot,
for SOMEthing!?)
.:. We've a lot of puzzles to solve!
By the way, I have this link: https://www.scribd.com/document/313411893/The-Official-Newsletter-of-the-Naval-Airship-Association
Perhaps someone can write to Naval Airship Association to find out more about ground line handling of airships and whether the 'Zeppelin' bend was used?
You mean like "someone" who's trying to write a knot bio?

Does your internet reach all the way to there?!
Meanwhile, I found an airships historian who even was
then going to [suspence build-up ...] Lakehurst; but he
has been kind enough to reply only to ack my msg.,
and not all so reassuringly let me know that he's going
to actually address the matter --I re-"bump"ed my query
for the now 2nd time (1sTime = May) gently letting him
know that our curiosity is no less w/time.
Dan Lehman...in relation to my reluctance to write a Knot Bio on #1425A Riggers bend:
Dan, I'm not sure if you realize how much work goes into researching ...
Well, my point was that you have a target that
requires all that much work, and spurn one that
would be much quicker to do, as its history is
pretty well known --to the extent that we're not
being deceived, and there isn't something else
to pop out of the unknown such as ancient illustrations
of the knot.
As we have at best NO inkling of where the
zeppelin bendcame from even if we find it simply noted as being
used by the USNavy --i.e., assuming that Collins is
right, where did Rosendahl get the knot?! He surely
didn't sound like a (assuming the Lee quote is right ...)
proud inventor.
--dl*
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