... one elementary feature that the reef knot has when used for it's primary purpose[:]
you cannot draw it tight for making a package or such.
I was thinking of pointing this aspect out myself: that "a better Reef..." begs the question
as to what aspect of it you consider needing betterment, or what is fundamental to the knot.
Qua
binder --under slight tension tie--, one needs a structure that is secured at each
step, with ultimate security coming perhaps by the build-up of structure; one cannot have
a knot requiring careful forming and then working. -- again, for
that aspect.
I recall a set of knots I never learned, presented by Harry Asher iirc, the Simons.
Although fairly reasonable knots, they all lack the simplicity of the sheet bends,
which makes them so easy to remember and to do. The only advantage of the Simons
is that they are built upon the square knot principle.
Hmmm, there are demonstrably few knots that
can be as simple as the Reef and
Sheet bend -- at such simplicity, one can readily exhaust the possible structural moves:
the Reef has opposed "U" parts; the Sheet is more complex by making one a "loop"
-- which is just another 90deg curve -- ; make two such loops and you have in one
orientation the Grass Bend ("Half-h. Bend" I might've named) or in Thief-like orientation
something requiring even greater care in dressing & setting. And you have run out of
alternatives.
The "Simple Simon" knots blur the distinction between Reef/Square ('SquaREef') and
Sheet bends -- frankly, I see SS Under as a secured (added tuck of loop's end) Sheet
Bend. SS Over can be seen as a minimal Albright knot -- though dressing in rope can
lead to a different geometry than the angler's version of a long reach w/multiple overwraps.
Similarly, Asher's "Vice Versa" knot is perceivable as using a couple simple extensions
to a Sheet bend (one for each part); it also matches the Wright & Magowan Reever Bend,
except in being asymmetrically loaded contrary the Reever.
But, really Asher's knots are pretty simple to tie (as their names might suggest).
... particularly by starting like the thief knot.
I think that this is a gratuitous misdirection: I see no reason to try this start, but
just extend from square-knot working -- the result is the same or similar.
There must be some reason why the sheet bend has become the standard knot for bending rope.
"
the standard" ? Whose? It is not in any use much by the commercial fishers
whose work I've seen -- the Fisherman's knot is de rigueur, sometimes the Reef w/ends secured;
maybe sometimes a sheet, ends secured (but its main appearance, ubiquity, is in hitching to an
eye!).
...tying the sheet bend in the form where the end is rove, rather than the elegant seaman's way of doing it.
Who is this "elegant seaman"? -- sounds suspiciously like book myth, given what little of the
"in the wild" I've sampled. And especially in the use of joining thinner to thick lines, I don't
see your envisioned slap-dazzle formation being what gets done, as it would be upon the thicker
rope to work the magic into the thinner and then be tucked down through the formed loop.
But mostly I find tied knots and have little in this case with which to make inferences; it's not
at all hard to tie it no matter what -- there only so much that gets done, after all.
And that is also why the square knot is a standard knot. It is easily done and easily remembered.
I'm not sure one won't find the Granny being the more easily or naturally done knot;
I recall remarking at skater Michelle Kwan's boot laces finished orientation that it must
be a Granny (laces bights running parallel w/foot vs. perpendicular). A nice little bit
of cord I just picked up from somewhere had a doubled Granny in it (qua eyeknot!?).
So mountaneers use ... Zeppelin bend, strait bend and Hunter's bend.
Where do you get this (mis)information? -- we really should know what your basis for
this blatantly false assertion is. (Another person e.g. could get it from reading your remark;
but no one could get it from actual mountaineers or rockclimbers. -- although Agent_Smith
might like to sway part of this argument.)
In way of complexity, the carrick bend, tied in the Wave way, is so much simpler than...
I think you're deluding yourself, just as those who thought up supposedly fancy-quick-handed
methods for Rosendahl's , SmitHunter's, & Ashley's (1452) bends have: you somehow accept
a premise that itself has ample complexity and exactitude to achieve, and THEN there is this
simple tuck & pull & capsize into .. VIOCI ! I don't buy it (this mule resists the pull

).
Or put another way, one can learn to tie knots one way or another way, and what one
actually does will largely depend upon initial teaching & acceptance. In some cases,
the method will be imposed by circumstance -- e.g., it would be impossible to use some
form-one-rope-into-bight-then-reeve-other... method to make a Reed knot in reefing sails;
or to do that sheet-bend-like-bowline-quick-tie method when hitching to an eye. And in
many cases of different methods, the judge won't be a stop watch but simply a sense of
whether it was quick enough -- 8 seconds vs. 12 could matter not at all.
But for those thinking that the reef knot is for bending, there is no cure.
This is an assertion to be analyzed: isn't the success of a method going to influence its
acceptance? -- and if those rumored catastrophes (seemingly so predictable; well, at least
oft' predicted adamantly!) occur, I'd expect that to have quick & lasting influence.
Too many authorities have claimed that it is a bend, British Admiralty, scouting etc.
Frankly, in the world of knots books, it seems quite the contrary: it is adamantly claimed
NOT to be a bend! And at least in a case of British merchant marine declaration I've cited in
the BQuibble thread, it's not clear that its requirement for testing carries through to use, though
I think there was implication of that. (One might reason that lines aren't often bent?)
Those really concerned about safety, climbers, don't use the reef knot as a bend.
Ha! Actually, they do, in two cases:
some (seen in wild, then found in some source, IIRC)
use it to join
tape/webbing (!!) -- quite shocked me to see, but ... . And then there is the
mis-named "Square Fisherman's" in which a SquaREef bend is backed-up by tying Strangle knots
in the ends around their S.Parts (the thought being that this bend is easily untied; for this purpose,
arguably the Thief is the better central construct, arranged so that Strangles area quickly slid snug
and thereby further secured).
-------
if you fix the working ends ...
I found some commercial fishing line with the the ends tucked through the lay; it was obvious
why the Reef was appreciated here: very slight bulk, almost unnoticeable in the twin line ("twin"
by the u-turned parallel parts, SPart & end, i.e.), esp. after some battering-compression of the knot.
If using it in a joint of eyeknots, I think that the Granny structure looks ideal, unjammable (all ends
loaded, here).
As for the Surgeon's knot, that extra twist of S.Parts is immediately cast into the ends upon
loading in rope qua bend (qua binder, they might stay; but you'll want more than one additional
"throw" -- the medical term, I think -- afterwards for securing it, as there's too much *room* above
the double-twist of S.Parts for a single twist to well bind; double over double, maybe.
Ack, but, yes, the simple addition of a twist (a "double twist")
in the ends will yield a secure
alternative quickly tied to the SquaREef knot, which is also fairly easily untied. It seems to work
reasonably well even it this double-twisted ends aspect is more of a double-
wrap of one end
around the other (i.e. imbalance of setting tension, or maybe a consequence of different ropes).
(I'm forgetting who it was who brought this knot to my attention some decade ago as a "new" knot
worthy of better acceptance.)
-------
One sadly needs to give some good testing to knots that are proposed to be put to serious, heavily
loaded use. Dave Richards's testing of knots in low-elongation & dynamic nylon kernmantle ropes
shows those "standard" bends the Sheet & Fisherman's Knot to slip under high loads, something
one might not perceive with even my sort of body-weight-and-5:1-pulley stressing (especially with
knots one fears could become permanent with even such loading!). (And I think Dave found more
slippage when testing hi-mod lines, but I've not seen any report from that, possibly incomplete,
testing.)
--dl*
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