Belmont's Bend

[ABelmont]

Hello everyone,

I came up with this knot accidentally a couple of years ago. I was trying to figure out an easier way to tie some bend or another (can't remember what now), and stumbled upon what I think is a pretty interesting structure. I've looked for it in books and online, but haven't found anything quite like it. Maybe you can help determine whether or not this is new...

I've used this bend to join similar size and material of line - mostly double braid polyester under half an inch. Under load it is very stable and strong. It won't tighten at all, and I haven't been able to make it slip. Even when put under very heavy load, it can be untied without any effort. This is due to the open structure of the knot, as seen in the last picture. You can actually leave a big hole in the middle of the knot, and it doesn't seem to have any effect on the knot's strength. If you leave it loose like this, it might come untied if shaken while not under any load, but it is also super easy to untie. Pretty cool

I originally tested this tied in 3/8" double braid polyester. I secured one end to a cleat, and the other to a big 2-speed self-tailing winch. I don't know the size/ratios of the winch, but it was one of the jib-sheet winches on my (heavy) 45' steel sailboat - It's pretty powerful. I could not make it slip. For comparison I tested the sheet bend, double sheet bend, rigger's bend (or hunter's bend), and a bowline bend in the same way. All of these slipped at least a little before tightening down enough to hold (on a few tests the sheet bend just kept slipping), and all of them were very difficult to untie after such heavy strain. My (maybe) new knot held better and could be untied with no effort.

I'm not sure about a name for this knot. I suppose "Belmont's bend" sounds alright, but I'm open to suggestions...

Thanks for the help with this. I'm excited to hear what you guys find.

-Alex

 

[knotsaver]

Hi Alex,
welcome and happy new year ,
you can find the knot in Roger Miles' Symmetric Bends as the "Waking Beauty" (A16) and as a loop in ABoK (#1063). Intimately related to the Sleeping Beauty (A15 or in Asher's The Alternative Knot Book).
You can find it on the Forum too:
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4090.msg24778#msg24778
(there it was named (erroneously) Walking Beauty)
It was presented in a reversed (tails and SPart inverted) form too
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=5525.msg37501#msg37501
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=5525.msg37510#msg37510

Ciao,
s.

[ABelmont]

Thanks for the thorough investigation. I'll have to check out Miles' book. I've always enjoyed the elegance of symmetric bends.

Thanks again for looking into it.

Alex

[roo]

I've used this bend to join similar size and material of line - mostly double braid polyester under half an inch. Under load it is very stable and strong. It won't tighten at all, and I haven't been able to make it slip. Even when put under very heavy load, it can be untied without any effort. This is due to the open structure of the knot, as seen in the last picture. You can actually leave a big hole in the middle of the knot, and it doesn't seem to have any effect on the knot's strength. If you leave it loose like this, it might come untied if shaken while not under any load, but it is also super easy to untie. Pretty cool

Based on your post, I think you may be interested in the Zeppelin Bend if you haven't seen it already.  It doesn't suffer from the shake-apart problems of the bend in question and is simpler while being amazingly jam-resistant.

[Dan_Lehman]

I came up with this knot accidentally ...

My usual mode of invention ("What if ... ?").

And let me thus add to yours :: looking at your nice
illustration of the exploded, finished knot, I see
the option to take each tail out though the nipping
loops --and thereby making fig.8s of each end's
component, en vacuo--, which yields a bulkier knot,
but one perhaps able to hold even in that slippery,
devilish material that EStar did testing with!

Alternatively, one might just go around with a 2nd
wrapping of the tails (repeating their finishing tuck,
i.e.), for giving some greater slack-security (if you
shake like Roo does!).

As for being able to have the openness of the knot
under load, it might not stay open in the slippery
HMPE ropes --strange things happen there, as I saw
in a sort of similar knot to this (an eye knot related
to Ashley's #1425, which is akin to this).  But, yes,
that can be esp. nice in a situation where the knot
is to be employed briefly, under observation --not
made for a sustained duration out-of-sight--, and
under heavy load.

Thanks much to Knotsaver for quick finding of the
related threads!!

Happy 2017.  (I have some *new knots* already in it.)

--dl*
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