Page 43 - The Pocket Guide to Outdoor Knots

Knots Themselves

he established knotting repertoire consists of more than 4,000 specimens,

Tand countless extra variations and permutations of these fundamental knots
are possible; and yet many professionals and able amateurs, working afloat, or as

fire-fighters, on civil engineering projects, as tree surgeons, or as a member of an
assault-and-rescue team for hostage situations, admit to a sound knowledge of no

more than six of those knots. More often than not these are: reef knot (page 40);
sheet bend (pages 80–81); clove hitch (pages 86–87); round turn & two half-

hitches (page 45); figure of eight (pages 54–55); and timber hitch (page 108).
Now these—one binding knot, one bend, three hitches and a stopper knot—are

fine, as far as they go, but not one is less than a thousand years old, and all
evolved coping with vegetable cordage. In no other activity, I suggest, would

such ancient (and perhaps outmoded) techniques go unquestioned.

The big problem with the 1950s synthetic cordage was that many tried and
trusted knots no longer held securely in it. The new-fangled manmade ropes
were smooth, slick and lacked frictional grip. Manufacturers’ recommendations

at the time, repeated by many knotting writers since, was simply to add extra

turns and tucks. This led to some awkward and unattractive hybrid knots, when
the more sensible solution would have been to look for others better suited to

synthetic materials.
Some innovative knot tyers have in the last 20 years produced new knots for

modern cordage (the vice versa bend is one), which have been adopted to
become part of the established knotting repertoire. Others have resurrected and

rehabilitated discarded or overlooked and underrated knots, such as the Eskimo
bowline, which now prove admirably suited for manmade cordage. As the

renowned knotsman Clifford Warren Ashley put it: “Old knots long out of use
have a way of coming back into this workaday world with renewed usefulness.”

Knotting terms

Individual knots can be grouped according to form and function. Those that join