Author Topic: Help on the name of a really cool knot  (Read 5859 times)

Tyler Henderwson

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Help on the name of a really cool knot
« on: December 04, 2005, 01:40:24 AM »
Gday guys,
I need some help on the name of a knot, I called it the thieves knot cause you could use it to abseil down something give the other line a tug and the rope will follow. Heres how you do it...
Grab the rope around half way between the ends and make a bite. Put the bite around a pole.
Grab the left line and thread it through the bite that went around the pole to make another bite. Now pull the right line to make it tight. This at the moment is merely a slip knot.
Now take the right line (the one you just pulled) and thread it through the bite you just made. Leave the bite big this time. Pull the left line tight and this would be the one you abseil down on. To make it a little safer you can put a half hitch in it. When you get to the bottom pull the other line and the rope will come down.
I hope you can follow that, and if anyone knows the name of it please email me. scarsurf733@hotmail.com
Rock on :-)

KnotNow!

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Re: Help on the name of a really cool knot
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2005, 05:47:19 AM »
Hi Rock On,
 Do you have access to an Ashley's Book of Knots (here after ABOK)?  There are a number of slipped hitches.  Go to page 63.  However, if you have enough line to reach your destination twice then just toss the line over your anchor and descend on a double line.  When you are safe and sound pull the line over the anchor and move on.  I put a line over a branch and then descend on a doubled line.  Then I recover my rope.. Just a thought but why would I need a single line to descend on and then have to use the spare tail to untie some knot?... any knot.?
 I do not recognize your bite into bite knot off the top of my head but I will enjoy looking for it.... but I willl stilll wonder why not ride down on the double tails? I love knots but sometimes no knot is necessary.  Of course I am not a rock climber or a high angle expert so there may be some long proven lesson in this for me... but so far I am 60 and haven't fallen yet.  Oh, by the way the arborsts have a way cool site.. these folks are up a tree every day... treebuzz.  Can't remember the URL but start out there and  you willl see some way cool knots and ropework.
 Thanks for offering the knot.. I will spend some time from your description and see if I can recognize it as published or haveing a common name.  Maybe somebody else will recognize it at "first blush".  But if I have both ends and the anchor at hand  I don't need a knot to descend..  However mooring and such have different needs.  I can load both lines equally when I come down... but mooring a boat or hitching  a horse... much different.
ROY S. CHAPMAN, IGKT-PAB BOARD.

KnotNow!

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Re: Help on the name of a really cool knot
« Reply #2 on: December 04, 2005, 06:13:01 AM »
Hi,
 I came on a bit too strong.  Sounding hostile.. Sorry.  I like trying to identify new (or undocumented knots).  My question is, however, valid.  If you have both ends and you have an anchor... Why do you need any knot.  Maybe the "climbers" can set me right.  When I have an anchor and two lines I simply decend with a double line.  However I respect the climbers and the arborists.  They are the safest "life support" knotters. Knots come to the front to fix problems.... as they always have.  
ROY S. CHAPMAN, IGKT-PAB BOARD.

knudeNoggin

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Re: Help on the name of a really cool knot
« Reply #3 on: December 04, 2005, 07:39:55 AM »
"bite" => "bight", please.

The knot described is pretty well known, and is called "Highwayman's" or "Draw" Hitch.
It's treacherous nature is less well known, as mosts knots books present it without
precaution.  In some ropes and esp. around relatively small diameter objects it's
pretty stable; and if the final tucked bight, which acts as a toggle (and has been
called the "slip-tuck"), is long, there is a good chance that should the knot capsize
--and this is the treacherous aspect--, it will at least lock off and hold the load
(but it will not be then a quick-release so readily, again, depending on materials).
You will not find this in Ashley.  Climbers (of any sort) do not use this knot.
As PABpres notes, if you've a long enough rope (or two) to do what you want
with this knot, you can as well skip the knot.  Canyoneers have used a knot that
like this one "slips free" of the object; they do this (sometimes) so as to avoid
leaving any anchorage cordage (something climbers don't mind doing)--a soft of
clean canyoneering ethic.  But they used a more elaborate structure called the
macrame' knot, which required repeated pulling alternately on each line (and so
wouldn't catastrophically slip free during an accidental single mis-tug during some
descent).  But I understand that the knot's not much used any longer; there are
some specifically constructed anchoring devices that do the same thing.

Here are some sites that present the Highwayman's Hitch:

www.layhands.com/Knots/Knots_Hitches.htm
www.primitiveways.com/knots_continued.html
www.iland.net/~jbritton/highwaymanshitch.htm Updated Link > www.pssurvival.com/PS/Knots/Knot_Knowledge_Photo_Illustrations_2004.pdf

*knudeNoggin*
« Last Edit: December 09, 2012, 08:37:10 PM by SS369 »

KnotNow!

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Re: Help on the name of a really cool knot
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2005, 01:19:26 PM »
Thank you for making clear what I know but can not express.   I am intrested to know that the "no footprint" is on with cavers but not with climbers.  Shame on climbers.  I thought everyone was picking up their own  dregs.   Yes, I am more than gulilty.. pull out my pitons if you find them.  Are not the climbers useinsg all the cool nuts and  jam harware?
ROY S. CHAPMAN, IGKT-PAB BOARD.

Dan_Lehman

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Re: Help on the name of a really cool knot
« Reply #5 on: December 05, 2005, 12:33:18 AM »
Quote
Shame on climbers.  I thought everyone was picking up their own  dregs.   Yes, I am more than gulilty.. pull out my pitons if you find them.  Are not the climbers useinsg all the cool nuts and  jam harware?

Climbers probably don't have pitons anymore (though in cycling
by Harpers Ferry WVa (I, on Md. side of Potomac), I saw two guys up
the rock there, and one seemed to be hammering something (and
the other not terribly attentive to the first!?)--maybe some retro guys
playing w/old hardware?).  And some of the new-fangled devices
cry out "take me with you!" well enough in the voice many hear--$$$.
But when abseiling, it's not costly things used by already in place
anchors, or some quick'n'easy sling of 40cents/foot tubular tape,
usually; and that gets left, maybe to be re-used.

There is actually someplace of soft rock in Germany, I think, where the
climbers jam software--stoppered webbing!  There is a test
report on some of the knots somewhere on-line.  --interesting!

(-;

KnotNow!

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Re: Help on the name of a really cool knot
« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2005, 05:49:39 AM »
I was just showing my age... when I climbed pitons were the hardware, axes had wooden handles, all crampons had umpteen points and were heavy and there were no jam nuts and it was considered proper to take all your hardware home.   Also falling was unforgivable, and often not survivable.  How far that sport has come in just 50 years.  Anyway I was up a tree today and I didn't even think for a second but came down on the tails of a bight over a limb and then pulled the line home to me.  Some day I must stop climbing.   At least on days when it is snowing.  Now you may ask... what's snow got to do with it and all I can say is wait for some more birthdays :-X
ROY S. CHAPMAN, IGKT-PAB BOARD.

roo

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Re: Help on the name of a really cool knot
« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2005, 07:34:19 PM »
Quote
Gday guys,
I need some help on the name of a knot, I called it the thieves knot cause you could use it to abseil down something give the other line a tug and the rope will follow. Heres how you do it...
Grab the rope around half way between the ends and make a bite. Put the bite around a pole.
Grab the left line and thread it through the bite that went around the pole to make another bite. Now pull the right line to make it tight. This at the moment is merely a slip knot.
Now take the right line (the one you just pulled) and thread it through the bite you just made. Leave the bite big this time. Pull the left line tight and this would be the one you abseil down on. To make it a little safer you can put a half hitch in it. When you get to the bottom pull the other line and the rope will come down.
I hope you can follow that, and if anyone knows the name of it please email me. scarsurf733@hotmail.com
Rock on :-)

Aside from the info you've already been given, here are some related structures that you might be interested in:

http://notableknotindex.webs.com/tumblehitch.html
http://notableknotindex.webs.com/timberhitch.html (third diagram)
http://notableknotindex.webs.com/haltersiberian.html (third diagram)

And no, they're not used for climbing either.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2017, 09:58:41 PM by roo »
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Jimbo_The_Kinky

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Re: Help on the name of a really cool knot
« Reply #8 on: December 05, 2005, 11:01:50 PM »
Quote
Shame on climbers.

HEY!  HEY!!  Back the guilt ambulance up a litter or two there bub!

SOME of us shameful climbers are just as offended by someone's left-behind anchors as we are when we see some pinhead toss a burger-doodle bag or a baby diaper out the car window!

SOME of us will be glad to
Quote
pull out my pitons if you find them.
and will gladly return them -- if you'll just stand there at the bottom of the abseil, I'll be glad to send them on down.  Y'all pull your helmets off now, so you don't miss it!

Quote
Are not the climbers useinsg all the cool nuts and  jam harware?

Sigh...  Would that it were so, PABPRES!  Would that it were so.  Back when I was too poor for lead, I taught my friends how to tie stopper knots (nothing special back then, just a lump of cordage) & jam them, as we couldn't afford the swifty cam-jam nuts & such.  I don't mind leaving a rope scrap to rot out near as much as leaving metal!!

Besides, there's a name for a climber who'd use left-behind anchors:  we call 'em "Casualties".

Pull 'em and pack 'em, people!  Trash your own back yard!

Jimbo

As to the topic at hand, didn't we cover this already?  Okay, I'm sure a cliff is much different from a power-transmission tower (as if), but that doesn't matter here, does it?  A proper abseil is done on doubled rope.  When you're afoot, pull one.  Done.

Save your trick kinking for hitch-broke horses and hollywood heroes.

(Sorry if that sounds rude, but this Highwayman's Hitch mess just keeps coming up again and again.  Maybe it should be in the FAQ...  I keep having nightmares about some impressionable kid lying bleeding under a pile of rope ...)
« Last Edit: December 05, 2005, 11:39:33 PM by Jimbo_The_Kinky »

knudeNoggin

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Re: Help on the name of a really cool knot
« Reply #9 on: December 06, 2005, 08:49:33 AM »
Quote
I keep having nightmares about some impressionable kid lying bleeding under a pile of rope ...)

But there aren't such reports coming known, are there?  Which is to me also something
to remark at, for the knot is well enough advertised, and there are many with ropes
and yet so far.

Let us hope the silence is noise from nothing there (and not unhearing),
and forever thus!

*knudeNoggin*