Page 155 - J. C. Turner - History and Science of Knots

Knots at Sea 145
many variations is illustrated below (Fig. 5). Further examples of slipped
longliner knots can be found in [12].
If we follow the lines out towards to the hooks then the next problem is
the attachment of snoods to the groundrope. Traditionally this has been done
with the Groundline Hitch (see Fig. 6), [l, #277], [36]: an ingenious solution,
which exploits the lay of the rope to anchor part of its structure, and which is
resistant to tugging under any angle. In actual practice this is what a hooked
fish would do. The Groundline Hitch has also been used to attach the floats
to the head rope of a gillnet.

Fig. 3. Fisherman's Knot Fig. 4. Double Fisherman's Knot

Fig. 5. Fig. 6. Groundline Hitch
Attaching hooks to a snood has been done by means of a Double Overhand
Knot. The drawings in Fig. 7 illustrate the process. Further examples of
longline knots can be found in [24].
Nowadays longlining and gillnetting still comprise a significant sector of
industrial fishing, but trawling is equally large. Trawlermen encounter knot-
table media which range from 2 mm twine via all sorts of rope up to 42 mm
diameter steel wire. Hence they have to know a great variety of knots. Many
traditional knots are in fact still being used. All fish catching methods have
experienced the transition to synthetics, but knot-wise speaking the impact
on trawling has not been so great as might be expected. The monofilamentous
fibres which are extremely smooth are braided into twine, which has a suffi-
ciently rough surface to enable the continued use of simple knots. Simplicity
is not only demanded for the sake of the netmaking machines, which churn
out the actual netknot by the billions, but also for the inevitable repair, which