"....One or several turns are made through the two loops
and they are tightened at every turn."
Frankly, I find this assertion (and were it advice ...) dubious:
tightening at each added reeving doesn't make sense to me;
I can see the act maybe as simply an attempt at getting
greater tension, but at a cost of any real MA --otherwise,
I'd think that if multi-reeved MA were wanted, they'd make
the turns
and then haul the tail to tighten it at once.
(Either way, one is likely to see slack in early reevings
with a subsequent one tightened, and friction will make
evening the tensions difficult.)
OK, but I wonder if he actually used such a mechanism. I'm thinking that if he did, he'd notice that it quite securely held itself. But that doesn't come up in his text. It makes me think that he used the pictured version.
Fair point, Roo - but it raises an interesting question (we may never know the answer) - although Ashley may have tied knots in order to draw them did he actually use many (or any) of the practical knots he shows? In this case he undoubtedly saw the knot in use but my feeling is that, like many others, he never used this knot in a real situation. Of course I may be quite wrong but I can tie and describe any number of knots which I have never actually used other than as an armchair knotter and probably never will so I may never be fully aware of the real advantages/disadvantages of a particular knot. ...
I might be who has illustrated and "fiddled"
the most knots of anyone --I'm a candidate,
for sure (as is X., Pieter van de Griend, and
some others) : I can --like you-- assure you
that many of these knots are met with only
briefly, in the moment of exploration, and
never much used, if at all (sometimes, the
familiarity is so passing that the knot gets
"re-"invented by me!
) Beyond this,
one can have illustrated a knot, even used
a knot, and be unaware of some if its properties
(e.g., I imagine that most of the kernmantle
rope users who "know" the
bowline with
Yosemite tie-off don't realize that it
can be tied
in the bight (which isn't even a possibility if
one is tying in for climbing, where TIB is
impossible)).
In the OP case, I would hold Ashley derelict in
his explanatory duty were he to have been aware
of the
versatackle reeving to provide for self-locking
(even if taken as momentary, in need of tie-off)
and not to have mentioned that.
--dl*
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