In a previous thread about the (provisionally-named) toggled-8 grip hitch, Dan Lehman observed: "the knot didn't hold, used to make a(n adjustable) eye, into which I stood and bounced a little. REVERSING the knot did, as hinted, give a solid nip & grip"
The toggled-8 is a hitch I like because it is easy to remember, ties and unties quickly, and can be tied in the bight, and with most of the ropes I use, it is grippy enough. And I'm calling it a grip hitch because it doesn't slide, so it's not a slide-and-grip hitch (or the practically-synonymous friction hitch) and because it resists jamming, I didn't want to call it a jam hitch. But Mr. Lehman's point remains salient--to be worthy of the name, a good grip hitch really should excel at gripping. And though the toggled-8 does a better job of gripping when it is tied in reverse, it is ungainly to tie that way, and there is greater risk of capsizing, so I consider reverse tying to be an impractical or at least unsatisfactory option. Overall, I do still consider the toggled-8 to be a grip hitch, just not an outstanding one.
So that set me looking for examples of grip hitches that can really grip, and today I wanted to talk about two of them. [images attached] The first is based on Ashley's #1746, which he calls a "slack line hitch". (Today, it is almost unfindable by that name because of the popularity of slacklining.) As depicted by Ashley, it has moderate grip strength, but loaded in the other direction, the grip increases greatly. The reversed-1746 can be finicky about how it is snugged down, and it is a somewhat unstable knot with some capsize risk, but with the right rope and dressed down optimally and pulled in the right direction, this is the most minimal hitch I've found (so far) that can deliver a truly tenacious grip. So even though I don't know how practical it is, I do think it is noteworthy.
The second is, of course, not quite as simple. I ran across it through experimentation, so I haven't found a common name for it yet. In my notes, I'm just calling it the serpentine hitch. It has one turn more than the reverse-1746, and it is harder to remember, and if you lose track of the wraps, it is easy to tie wrong. But tied right, it is as grippy in both directions as the 1746 in its best direction, it has much less capsize risk, it dresses down more consistently, and it can take more shaking and racking. But the most unusual thing about the serpentine is that if you pull either side of the host against either line going into or out of the hitch, it is remarkably stable against all load combinations. It can even hold against both line-in and line-out being pulled the same direction along the host simultaneously--in either direction. And even after pulling line-in hard against line-out, it remains highly resistant to jamming. Overall, this is the best-performing grip hitch I've run across so far. (And it is not at all a candidate for "slide-and-grip", because, once snugged-down, it is very resistant to sliding--even if you grab the knot directly to try to slide it.)
I should note my experimenting has all been on different weights and stiffnesses of braided nylon rope, which are only moderately slippery. If anyone has access to some notoriously slippery rope and feels inclined to experiment, I'd be interested to hear whether the serpentine was up to a greater challenge. Also, if anyone knows a common name for the serpentine, that would be welcome information (likewise if some other hitch already has the name serpentine). And if anyone knows of a similarly-simple hitch which they think is a better contender for the gripmaster title, I would certainly like to hear about that as well. (It is fairly easy to make a very grippy hitch if there is no limit on the number of coils and wraps. The trick is getting the most grip from the least hitch.)
