Page 313 - J. C. Turner "History and Science of Knots"

304 History and Science of Knots

cordage be less secure);
`Tumbling' Thief His own stabilised version of an
otherwise unstable knot;
`oVerhand' Ring or Water Knot (#1412);
`I Wonder...? and' Grapevine or double Fisherman's
knot (#1415); `I wonder ... will it hold me?'
as this is a knot for rock climbers;
`Hot-X-Bend' Shown to him in 1979 by
Ettrick W. Thomson of Suffolk, England;
`Yippee aYe, Farmer's Loop (#1054) with the
Yippee aYe' ends cut to form a bend;
`iZZard' Double Harness Bend (#1420) with
parallel ends. Izzard is an olde English
name for the letter Z.

Working on his Alphabend he now and then made a mistake in tying a knot;
and often found he could correct the fault without undoing it all to start again.
It's a labour-saving trick most knot tiers learn. But Desmond Mandeville-
a 1930s Cambridge graduate with a double-first in Natural Sciences-grew
curious about the way a tuck or two transformed one bend into another and,
unaware of Shaw's earlier efforts, he decided to study the phenomenon.
In the next 25 years he learned a lot about this particular class of knots,
naming up to 20 previously unrecorded ones. He also discovered and charted
the steps between kindred knots.
He named these knotting routes Trambles (short for Tuck-Rambles) [3],
and observed that knots -a mere tuck apart could have extremely different
characters. The dependable Sheet Bend-he pointed out-is cousin to the
scary Thief Knot (which exists like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in two forms,
one of them stable ... the other extremely unstable).

A Basic Tramble

The sequence of Figures 3-6 illustrates a typical trip through bend territory.
If you venture into it, take care not to become lost. A knot is `either exactly
right or wholly wrong' [1, #77]. One misplaced tuck or turn will lead you
either to an entirely different knot-or to no knot at all. So, if at any stage
you find yourself off course, stop. Retrace your steps, or start again.
It is a rough rule of trambling (not always strictly observed) that you
should leave more than half of the original bend intact when you untuck
and retuck any strand. The transformation Reef-to-Granny is not allowed, as
it would involve a 50% untucking.