Page 23 - The Pocket Guide to Outdoor Knots

subordinate share of today’s cordage market.
These vegetable or natural fiber ropes emerged in colors from blonde to

brown, with smells evocative of their plant sources and exotic countries of
origin. Some nostalgic souls— who in their hearts wish humankind had not

progressed beyond canals, windmills and sailing ships—still yearn for tarred
Italian hemp (once the best cordage in the world), Philippine manila (from the

leaves of a type of banana), sisal from the Yucatán peninsula of Central America,
coir from the Malabar coast and Ceylon, and Egyptian cotton (seen in ropes

aboard rich owner’s yachts, or tied around the waists of nuns and monks).
Since the fibers obtainable from vegetable sources were limited in length

from around 10in (23cm) to 3ft (1m) at most, natural ropes were always weak,
even when scaled up to enormous circumferences. Nonetheless the countless

fibers projecting from the surface of all natural cordage created the friction
which enabled even quite basic knots, bends and hitches to hold in such ropes—

but these hairy ropes could be cruel on the hands.
Such cordage swelled when wet, jamming the knots tied in them. In icy

conditions, when wet ropes froze, any movement caused the brittle fibers to
break and irreparably weakened affected strands. Vegetable fiber ropes had to be

painstakingly dried before they could be stowed away, otherwise they were
prone to mildew and rot, while insects and vermin might chew and destroy them

at any time. Following the Second World War, when synthetic fibers came onto
the cordage market, these shortcomings could no longer be tolerated.

Synthetic (manmade) fibers

Cordage of all kinds is nowadays made from artificial fibers of polyamide,
polyester, polyethylene and polypropylene. These are the four manmade

products that have emerged from chemical laboratories in the past 50 years, to be
adopted by the cordage industry. They now dominate the market.

Polyamide (also known as nylon) is the strongest (although 10–15% weaker

when wet). The first of the synthetic fibers to become commercially available for
rope making, it was at the outset an expensive alternative that only a few