Need help identifying a knot

[ScouterWill]

Greetings.  Please be kind as this is my first post.

I had a friend spot an unknown knot on the waterfront which was securing a boat fender to a round metal rail.   he supplied a picture which I have attached. 

I reproduced the knot which seems to be a variation on a cow hitch, but intended to have only the standing part loaded.  The set is the same as the cow hitch tied on a fixed spar, except that instead of the last tuck going under the bite, it passes over and then up an under the bite on the outside of the standing part.

The knot seems secure and doesn't easily capsize.  I like how the standing part is fully against the spar and doesn't pinch.  I've loaded it pretty heavily and it did not bind.   

I've reviewed what books I have as well as done a pass thru ABOK, but am not finding something like it.  I'm sure, given how simple this is, that it is a known knot, which is why I didn't post it in the "new knot" section.  I just want help identifying it. 

Any ideas?

[roo]

Greetings.  Please be kind as this is my first post.

I had a friend spot an unknown knot on the waterfront which was securing a boat fender to a round metal rail.   he supplied a picture which I have attached. 

I reproduced the knot which seems to be a variation on a cow hitch, but intended to have only the standing part loaded.  The set is the same as the cow hitch tied on a fixed spar, except that instead of the last tuck going under the bite, it passes over and then up an under the bite on the outside of the standing part.

The knot seems secure and doesn't easily capsize.  I like how the standing part is fully against the spar and doesn't pinch.  I've loaded it pretty heavily and it did not bind.   

I've reviewed what books I have as well as done a pass thru ABOK, but am not finding something like it.  I'm sure, given how simple this is, that it is a known knot, which is why I didn't post it in the "new knot" section.  I just want help identifying it. 

Any ideas?

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure if I've seen it before, but I did try it with smaller, stretchy, line around a larger bar than what you have shown, and it was possible, upon some movement of the standing part, for the free end to start pointing up (with regard to your picture), which would then be followed by slippage to failure since the parts involved with clamping of the free end started to stretch away from the object.

I also noticed that if you pull the free end up (toward the top of your picture), it can lead to a dressing of the hitch with a further degradation of security.

[xarax]

   A very simple 2-wrap hitch based on the Cow hitch. Not bad, but it can be greatly improved, without any further additions regarding material and number of required tuckings. See similar 2-wrap hitches, based on the Cow hitch, at the first attached picture, and :
   http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4739
   It is very useful if such a hitch can be tied-in-the-bight ( if it is "tiable in the bight" = TIB ).
   The best, by far, such hitch is shown at the second attached picture, and at :
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4035.msg24785#msg24785
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4035.msg24787#msg24787
   More explanations and pictures of that hitch at :
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4673.0

[xarax]

   Perhaps the "simplest" ( whatever that may mean...) 2-wrap hitch is the one shown at the attached pictures. I imagine the cowboy watch the poor Indian who scratches his head trying to understand why the rope can not slip through this knot, and the horse can not escape - or was it the other way around ? 
   For a temporary, yet secure hitch, it is a nice solution the knot tyer can always carry with him, because it is such a light = conceptually simple knot, occupying a few only grey cells of his brain.

[Dan_Lehman]

   A very simple 2-wrap hitch based on the Cow hitch.

I see it more as a deviation from/to the common
knot for such purposes --viz., the clove h. : where
here the usual taken in the opposite direction,
in a sense, though the orientation of the final
part comes more at a perpendicular than aligned
orientation.  (Frankly, a clove + slip knot stopper
might better suit the needs --potentially spilled
with one good, stout pull on the tail, and otherwise
more surely holding.)

Not bad, but it can be greatly improved, without any further additions
regarding material and number of required tuckings. See similar 2-wrap hitches,
based on the Cow hitch, at the first attached picture, and :
   http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4739
   It is very useful if such a hitch can be tied-in-the-bight ( if it is "tiable in the bight" = TIB ).

TIB is impossible in this to-the-rail hitching which is
common to boats; to-some-pile hitching, though, as
with the pile hitch --which this knot can also be likened
to-- does possibly see the benefit.

Of the pictured hitches referred to above, the first
two (red & pink) and last (white) are bad --they
are not **pile** hitches, but ring, dubiously spar
hitches : i.e., the hitched object's diameter must be
relatively small, so that the closing tuck will be nipped.

The reverse of the last hitch (ossel hitch is that)
will nip in rope-on-rope, so object diameter doesn't
matter.  Still, for that to have slack-security, there
should be some further tucking.  Xarax presents this
reversed ossel hitch in his 2nd post above.  One
can find ways to get slack-security in this with some
extension of tucking.

--dl*
====

[xarax]

   A very simple 2-wrap hitch based on the Cow hitch.

I see it more as a deviation from/to the common knot for such purposes --viz., the clove h.

   Indeed, one can see it like this, too - but, since I had realized that the Clove hitch, when tied around compressible material, i.e., a rope, is prone to jamming, I am very careful with this knot, and I prefer to see it less !  The only cases where I think we probably need it, are the mid-air, Gleipnir-like binders, and the "necks" of some hitches ( the Bull Clove hitch, for example ) : there, we need an as tight knot as possible... 
   
   By "based on the Cow hitch", I had wished to point out the fact that the Standing Part follows a zig-zag path on the surface of the pole, allowing the utilization of a mechanical advantage - just as in the Cow/Girth hitch.

Of the pictured hitches referred to above, the first two (red & pink)... are bad --they are not **pile** hitches, but ring, dubiously spar hitches : i.e., the hitched object's diameter must be relatively small, so that the closing tuck will be nipped.

   They are NOT "dubiously"(sic) spar hitches - but I know it because I had tied them hundreds of times, in many poles of different diameters, while you, evidently, have not...
   The first (red), the Locked Cow hitch can be tied with an additional tuck, if we are not sure the Tail End will be squeezed on the surface of the object. See the relevant post for such versions (1). The simplest, untucked TIB version of it has been proved to be extremely tight and secure in ALL cases where the hitched object was round.
   All those are tight hitches / binders (2), a characterization you better not bother to understand, if you have not understood it already - after ALL those posts where I had explained it... THAT property, being a tight hitch / binder, i.e., the locking of the Standing End, is the most interesting property of those hitches, not the locking of the Tail End - which is an almost mundane one...

1. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4035.msg24356#msg24356
    http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4035.msg24357#msg24357
2. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4155   

[xarax]

   When, almost two years ago, I tied the Locked Cow hitch (1), I could nt imagine what an imaginative knot tyer would pull from his hat, in order to dismiss this superb knot beforehand ( as all knot tyers do too often, for the knots which they had missed, so they have now to ignore or run down...). Now I know ! A gargantuan spar ! 
   After much deeeep thinking during those two years, this hitch has finally been characterized by a laborious knot tyer as "bad", and "dubiously" spar hitch, because its Tail End can not be squeezed tightly enough in between the riding turns and the surface of the spar, when this spar is thick  enough. How thick ? Well, this is left to the reader to decide... This laborious knot tyer, who was thinking about what he could say about this knot for two looong years before he spell out his wise verdict, has no time to measure things : he only attaches a sticky label to the knot he wishes/prays to disappear ( along with its tyer, if possible... )
   So, I searched in my laboratory, and I found the thinner possible spar / pole, which demands a re-tucking of the Tail End of the Locked Cow hitch, because its surface is, relatively to the diameter of the rope, too flat to squeeze it underneath the riding turns and immobilize it. Well, it turns out that it was neither so thin, nor so spar/pole ! It was a pot !    When the ratio of the diameter of a (slippery) rope to the diameter of a (slippery) spar/pole reaches 1 /10 - 1/12, the Tail End of the Locked Cow hitch should be secured by an additional tuck, through the knot s nub. See this retucked Locked Cow hitch in the first three attached pictures.
    As I had explained many times, the difficult and interesting thing in all those tight hitches/binders (2), is NOT how we secure/lock the Tail End ! This something any decent hitch worth its name has to deliver - we have dozens of dozens secure hitches. The difficult and interesting thing is how we secure/lock the Standing End, so the hitch can accumulate any tensile forces are induced into its wraps during pre-tightening or tightening. In short, how to tie a ratchet-ing rope mechanism, which enables the hitch/binder to shrink and lock, without been able to be released by itself, even while there is no more pull coming from the Standing End. Such a tight hitch/binder can withstand much heavier lengthwise loadings, because its wraps, being already pre-tensioned, can not be distorted too much ( be transformed from circular to elongated oval ones ) and let the spar/pole slip easily though them.

   ( At the last attached picture I show the corresponding "Dan Lehman s hitch" tied around a spar/pole - which is a genuine spar hitch, not a "dubiously spar hitch", as the Locked Cow hitch is, according to the recent invention/discovery of the gargantuan spar  !
   Where is the pole/spar ? Inside the pot, in the form of a seed of a tree, which, in just a few years, it will grow up, and so we will get a thick enough trunk, filling the diameter of the pot, to tie the hitch around it.
   Where is the hitch ? Inside the pot, too, in a "virtual" state : it is not non-existing, it is just un-shown - perhaps due to the perspective, which does not enable us to see inside... 
   It is funny what one is forced to figure out, just to say something negative about anything... The other day another laborious knot tyer discovered the "elastic material" and the "bungee chord", to dismiss beforehand any knot that can not be tied on it ! Now, this laborious knot tyer discovers the "gargantuan pole", to dismiss the best, most simple, most tight, most easily tied TIB 2-wrap hitch we have.
   The constructive criticism is to tie the hitch in many poles, and report the size of the pole that demands a further tucking of the Tail End. The whining criticism is to hide oneself behind labels, and to baptize a hitch as a "ring hitch", because it can not be tied around a pole the diameter of a pot ! )

1. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4035.msg24785#msg24785
2. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4155.0

[xarax]

   A picture of a tight, rock-solid TIB Locked Cow hitch, tied around a less gargantuan spar !
   I wonder, had Dan Lehman tried this hitch around his Unicorn s corn, or not ?  ( However, a Unicorn s corn is tapered, and that may be detrimental to the gripping power of this hitch, indeed...)

   In this case, the ratio of the rope-to-pole diameters was 1/12. I think that this is a safe upper limit for the common, un-tucked Locked Cow hitch, when we tie it with slippery ropes around slippery poles. Beyond this, we should better re-tuck the Tail End, as shown in the previous post.
   

[xarax]

The reverse of the last hitch (ossel hitch is that)
 Xarax presents this reversed ossel hitch in his 2nd post above. 

   I am reluctant to speak so easily about one hitch been the "reversed" of another : for reasons explained elsewhere ( at (1), for the particular case )- AND because, in my mind, the "reversed" of a knot is a knot where all Standing Ends have been transformed to Tail Ends, and vice versa. Now, in a hitch, the pole is part of the knot, it plays the same role a segment of rope would had played in its place. It may be considered as a segment of the eye of a wiiide loop, where both legs are loaded, i.e. both play the role of Standing Ends. This role does not change in the supposedly "reversed" hitch, so this makes me think that it is only half-reversed ! 

1. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4739.msg30642#msg30642

[Dan_Lehman]

Of the pictured hitches referred to above, the first two (red & pink)... are bad --they are not **pile** hitches, but ring, dubiously spar hitches : i.e., the hitched object's diameter must be relatively small, so that the closing tuck will be nipped.

They are NOT "dubiously"(sic) spar hitches
--but I know it because I had tied them hundreds of times,
in many poles of different diameters, while you, evidently, have not...

I will concede just two "touche's here and demand
you swallow the above BS with regard to the quite
demonstrably deficient reversed ossel hitch --as that
one fails, quickly.

I confess to surprise that the other two (omitting
those ones with the SPart turning on rope) held
in such diameter differences --really, rather going
past "spar", to my mind, towards "pile"!  I see that
in part, the turn of the first has an effect of keeping
the tail strand of the cow's parallel parts adjacent
to the SPart within the collar, and that thus the
collar provides nip(!); in the other, the opposite
turn for its tuck necessarily pulls it out of this adjacency,
but then makes it part of a sort of stack of two strands
that fill the nipping space, which I had seen as too large
to provide a satisfactory nip(!).

(I tried the hitches with both a slick PP kernmantle
and a nylon kernmantle --both orange (to be fair!)--
in about the same diameters Xarax shows (I even
held the knots tied around PVC pipe to my monitor
to see the close match!); I also sought out some
similar diameter of a rough material --a tree limb--,
and that didn't change results all so much.)

And I'd thought that the standard angle of material
in a choker-hitch orienation made for a larger space
between legs & object --a bigger gap to fill.  Still, I do
find the knots on the "dubious" side, no matter the
testing; I prefer something more sure, if it's to be
left on its own or for heavy loading.


--dl*
====

[xarax]

   I believe you were misled by the simple fact that we are not used to this class of "tight hitches" - perhaps because Ashley had not shown such knots ?    When the Standing End is "locked", by a whatever nipping mechanism, at least as tightly as the Tail End ( in fact, it needs to be "locked" much more effectively than the Tail End, because it bears the full 100% tension, while, at the Tail End, after all those capstan wraps, the tension has been already reduced greatly ), the Tail End is forced to be squeezed in between the surface of the pole and the riding turns - because the wraps are forced to be tightly woven around the pole ( otherwise the knot would had not been a "tight hitch" in the first place ! ). So, the induced tension, during a pre-loading or a loading phase, has already "locked" the whole hitch around the pole tightly, and that is why the Tail End can not be but effectively, and securely, "locked", too. Iff the wraps have not been tensioned, and the riding turns have not nipped the Tail End that goes under them, then the hitch would not work - because it is not meant to work that way ! It is not meant to work as a two-eyes, double noose, where the wraps can encircle the pole however loosely.
   The simplest "tight hitch" ( which also utilizes the mechanical advantage of the zig-zag path of the Standing Part on the surface of the pole of the Cow hitch ), the Locked Cow hitch, works only because and when it is tight- period. If we wish to secure it more, we run the danger to tie a more complex, or a not-TIB hitch, as the one I had shown in Reply#6 (1).
   

[ I ] demand you swallow the above BS with regard to the quite demonstrably deficient reversed ossel hitch --as that one fails, quickly.

   After more than 3.000 posts, you have not yet learned that I do NOT tie BS knots... ( Well, at least not as many as you seem to be happy to believe...). You are not such a fast learner, are you ?  Tie the hitch JUST as I had shown, with the tip of the "locking" bight just as twisted on the surface of the pole as I had shown, and you may learn something.
   Anyway, I had not presented the "reversed ossel hitch" as you call it ( I do not...) for anything more than a simple demonstration of how the "locking" of the Standing End can stabilize a nub, forcing the Tail End to take a particular orientation regarding the adjacent rope and pole, and be securely nipped as well. So, it is just an example of what I said above - a very simple "tight hitch" that either works because and when it is tightly wrapped around the pole, or does not.
   What made a great impression on me, is the fact that Ashley had not presented the Locked Cow hitch, but only its poor relative, the ABoK#1683, which is NOT a "tight hitch", because the Standing End is NOT "locked" by any effective mechanism (2).
   So, was he right or wrong  , when he says :
   I supposed that everything of so simple a nature had already being discovered.

1. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4975.msg32850#msg32850
2. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4441

P.S.
    Perhaps I should repeat, here, two things I had mentioned elsewhere : To achieve a better grip, in some of those hitches we should better press the nub onto the surface of the pole while we are pulling the Standing End (3), or we should also pull the Tail End before the final pull of the Standing End (4).

3. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4739.msg30666#msg30666
4. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4739.msg32599#msg32599

[xarax]

   Another simple hitch ( in fact, the simplest possible !  ), which may take advantage of a ( gentle or not ) push towards the surface of the knot, while it is tightened ( as mentioned in the previous post, and at (1)), is the Simplest hitch : in fact, nothing more than a simple single overhand knot tied on the Standing Part. It is true that this hitch has not attracted the number of gnats the genuine gnu( wildebeest ) hitch did, but it is no more complex and no less secure. Moreover, it can "lock" the Standing End quite sufficiently, and, once tightened, can remain tight  - "sufficiently", if we take into account the fact that it is a single wrap hitch, so it can not utilize the mechanical advantage a 2-wrap Cow hitch-based "tight hitch" can.
   I had shown this hitch some years ago (2), without receiving any single positive or negative comment, ever - so I suppose everybody is familiar to it ( consciously or unconsciously...)  . ( I have included it in the dozen of the best "new" knots I had tied - at least until I will be informed about a previous publication) . Anyway, I post two new pictures of it - they can make no harm, I guess.
   
1. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4739.msg30666#msg30666
2. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3288.msg19765#msg19765

[SS369]

   I had shown this hitch some years ago (2), without receiving any single positive or negative comment, ever - so I suppose everybody is familiar to it ( consciously or unconsciously...)  . ( I have included it in the dozen of the best "new" knots I had tied - at least until I will be informed about a previous publication) . Anyway, I post two new pictures of it - they can make no harm, I guess.
   
1. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4739.msg30666#msg30666
2. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3288.msg19765#msg19765

Sometimes no comments are necessary. ;-))

Let's not forget another very simple hitch that works well, the Timber hitch.

Perhaps now we've veered far enough from ScouterWill's inquiry.
Which is still open to answer.

SS

[xarax]

Let's not forget another very simple hitch that works well, the Timber hitch.

   I know you do it on purpose ! 
   The Timber hitch is not a "tight hitch" ( the humble collar around the neck / Standing Part, by the mere fact it is narrow AND eye-shaped, can not serve as a "locking" mechanism ), AND it consumes much more material than the Simplest hitch. I also believe that most people would tend to twist the Tail End around the Standing Part of the Timber hitch more times than necessary ( so much for the sense of security this hitch offers...), therefore the knot would consume an unreasonably long segment of the rope s end, for just a mediocre result...
 
   " Another note - about knot tyers and the knots we prefer to use, in general, and the Timber hitch, in particular. I think that there may be a very simple but deep explanation of the fact that we prefer knots based on multiple twists of two individual lines ( or two parts of the same line ), around each other - and the implementation of this, in the case of hitches, is the Timber hitch : they are the first knots we learn in a very young age, when we learn to tie our shoelaces !  Then, in the household matters, the sight of the repetition of one of the Reef family of knots - most times of the wrong one ! We come to believe that this is the only way knots work : Twist the lines around each other, make tight tangles, and burry the Tail Ends into them, to secure them against slippage.
   ...it is not only bad teachers and bad books that inhibit any further and deeper knowledge about knots... It is also the whole cultural environment around us, which keeps believing that knots are just tangles of lines - and that the easiest way to tangle an untangled line is to spin-spin-spin, and twist-twist-twist it - so no wonder that the "tight hitches" [ like the ones I had presented ] are ignored - and that one of the most known and popular hitches, is, what else ? : the Timber hitch. "

[Dan_Lehman]

   Another simple hitch ( in fact, the simplest possible !  )...

I regard such structures as "noose (hitche)s" because
the actual *knotting* is of the tail to the (compound)
structure's SPart --and not around the hitched object.

And, yes, this is so simple, and generally sure,
that I'm surprised at its absence from Ashey's
record of observed (and even imagined) knots!?
(I don't know if it is in Hansel & Grettel's book.]

When dressing & setting it, I will usually make
some effort to ensure that the tail (of the *knot*)
gets drawn & pressed against the SPart (of the
structure).  One can go a tuck further so as to
ensure no mischief occurs of the tail somehow
being freed of that nipping to become a mere
half-hitch and possibly falling from security.

(Sorry for not having such comments years ago!)   

Beyond this simplicity lies e.g. knotting the tail
with an anchor bend/hitch, and so on.

--dl*
====