Hammock Hitch

[mcjtom]

This is a somewhat naive question, but maybe someone would have an answer.  The two hitches, #1832 and #1833 bear the monicker of 'hammock hitches'.  I've seen them in other places a long time ago and, without much thinking, used them to hitch the hammocks.  My question is: why these particular two would be so appropriate for hammocks?  Is that the case of someone naming them as such on the spur of the moment and the rest of us (or at least me) just following it blindly, or are there any properties that they display that make them well suited for the purpose?

[JohnC]

If you'll excuse a brief digression (I don't have any insights on your question), I really like the way your link went right to the exact knots in ABoK. I've been cutting and pasting cropped images, but your way is far better.

[Sweeney]

These hitches are described as "Hammock Hitches" in ABoK rather than named as such since they were seen in use attached to hammocks. This is typical of a locally used adaptation which may not widely occur but has been found useful locally so why re-invent the wheel (or hammock hitch) - if it works others will use it too but until Ashley started his magnum opus such a knot would perhaps be unlikely to spread outside of the local community. I often wonder how many knots are (or were) used by a small group of people, knots unknown (or lost) to the rest of us.

Sweeney

[mcjtom]

If you'll excuse a brief digression (I don't have any insights on your question), I really like the way your link went right to the exact knots in ABoK. I've been cutting and pasting cropped images, but your way is far better.

Cheers for that - it's pretty easy as the Internet Archive reports the URL of the actual page being viewed.  I'm not sure if you know, but if you get the free account there (and log in) you can bookmark the pages and comment on them (that will only be visible to you, but it may make finding the knot you want easier).  You can also search for knots by their number or description as the book is OCR'ed.