The Ashley Book of Knots (1944)
archive.org
archive.org
A favorite quote:
> The topsail halyard bend is said to be a yachting hitch, but it is possible that it has never appeared outside the covers of a book. It has one more turn than the studding-sail bend and this, like the second tablespoonful of castor oil, savors of redundancy.
Also known as the Ashley stopper knot! I've started keeping a short length of paracord on my desk to practice knots during video calls. It makes a great fidget toy. The Ashley stopper is what I've been tying this week and it's such a gem (but a little harder to untie than I'd like).
ABOK is the classic. But I was surprised to learn recently that it's not the final word on knots. Superior knots like the Zeppelin bend don't appear in it and there have even been useful knots invented since it was published. Geoffrey Budworth's "The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Knots and Ropework" includes knots that were invented in the 80s.
What a great idea. I just started learning knots. What do you use to tie onto? Some knots require something to which to fix.
Then I just carried that around in my bag, or in a drawer at work, and when the opportunity presented itself, I practiced.
I wound up learning 20, and one of the GPs challenged me to tie them all blind-fold. Which I did, and won a metre of liquorice!
This is literally what I started doing like 6 months ago, and I went from knowing only how to tie my shoes to having a great repertoire of knots. It’s great to have a couple hanks of paracord in the car now to tie stuff down, and more versatile (and safer) than the bungee straps.
If I had a nickel for each time I got to use the skill of 'how to splice and/or roll eyes in wire rope' he taught me I'd have three nickels. Which isn't a lot but its weird that it happened three times.
https://www.animatedknots.com offers an app with some animations of knots that cites ABOK numbers and page numbers, and i have that installed on my phone.
Rebinding this particular book reminded me of an old coworker at Scout camp who did something neat where he completely unbound it, laminated each page, and then stuck it all in a 3-ring binder. It made it so the book would lie flat on any page, which is nice when you need both hands to practice a knot, and also protected it from messy 11 year olds. (He had another copy which he kept in pristine condition, as well.)
Knowing a few different knots for a variety of situations comes in handy. The right knot holds properly and can usually be undone when needed without having to cut it out.
If you're starting out then the square knot, two half hitches, taught line hitch, clove hitch, and bowline cover most use cases. And, yes, those are among the basic ones taught to Scouts.
I believe the US Navy recommends 2 bowlines over a square knot, but the sheet bend is still the gold standard.
"But Which Knot Is Really The Best Knot?
A true landlubber's question, but one that is inevitably raised. The correct answer should be the responsible—albeit boring—"It depends." Are you knotting together sheets for an open-air exit from a burning hotel? Or are you tying up your hair?
But let's say you've really only got room for two or three knots in your long-term memory files. If such were the case, I could be forced to recommend the bowline, the sheet bend, and the clove hitch. The three of them are the class of the three primary knot categories—loop knots, rope-to-rope knots (bends), and rope-to-something-else knots (hitches). Between them, they should get you into most binds.
Incidentally, the opposite question, "Which is really the worst knot?" is far simpler to answer. As disillusioning as this sounds, it's the square knot, the most over-hyped, under-strength knot in creation. Clifford Ashley, the author of the definitive encylopedia on the subject of knotting, states that the square knot "...has probably been responsible for more deaths and injuries than all other knots combined."
The reason is that the square knot capsizes, i.e. it unties itself. A couple of quick tugs on the rope, or an inadvertant bump, and the honest square knot turns into thin air, an unhappy result that demonstrates the difference between a "strong" knot, one that weakens the rope least, and a "secure" knot, one that resists unraveling."
This was disillusioning when I first read it as an avid Boy Scout. Now I can't think of a more apt symbol for the Scouting program.
And of course the double slipped square knot. I always have trouble with it, the right over left and left over right steps slow me down trying to make sure I don't accidentally tie a granny. But once it's done it's really obvious to anyone how to untie it since it's a standard shoelace bow.
I think one of the coolest things is that most knots have a really obvious slipped version, once you know the base knot you can make sure it never binds on you.
I always hear the clove hitch is not the greatest though, so I'm never sure what to do. Gliepnir is my favorite replacement, but it's not easy to remember.
The rolling hitch [1] is a slight variation that works great as a drop-in replacement. For attaching a rope to a pole, I go as far down this list as is feasible and/or necessary:
- two half hitches [2] (this is actually just a clove-hitch around the standing end)
- round turn and two half hitches [3] (like the above, but a little more secure and it takes the load while you tie it)
- anchor hitch [4] (even more secure, but harder to tie under load)
[1]: https://www.animatedknots.com/rolling-hitch-knot
[2]: https://www.animatedknots.com/two-half-hitches-knot
[3]: https://www.animatedknots.com/round-turn-two-half-hitches-kn...
Round turn and two half hitches is really interesting because you don't have to relearn anything.
It seems to be "nooslike" similar to the uni-knot, which makes me wonder if just a slipped uni-knot (Maybe with a round turn?) Could also work?
I like how it doesn't wrap tightly around the thing, giving you some slack when you need to untie it, and a sudden load while tying won't make it constrict around an object, making it less likely to take an errant finger with it.
For years I have looked for a list of "Bibles" of their respective subjects, but have never found anything quite right.
Chapman's Piloting & Seamanship is another example that comes to mind.
It was a somewhat special time, where you had a lot of relatively well-paid capable people stuck on a boat with nothing to do for sometimes weeks on end. Encourages some creativity, I suppose (: Scrimshaw is another product of that time — some really intricate stuff out there (eg: [1]).
For me, I feel like the bowline and trucker's hitch give you huge bang for the buck. Memorize those, and you can handle many things, with a bit of rope.
[1] https://modelshipworld.com/topic/27614-prisoner-of-war-bone-...
But the Tarbuck is just that little bit better, and identically easy to tie (and untie).
i find it very difficult to remember how to tie a knot when not practiced.
i like the glue that the author recommends in the book for applying on string ends to prevent them from fraying, it's called duco cement -- comes in a green tube.
some of the knots i've remember off the top of my head: bowline, constrictor knot, alpine knot, truckers hitch, midshipments hitch.
and i'll end it with a fun fact,
The Midshipman's Hitch Knot is promoted by Ashley (ABOK # 1993, p 325) as the only knot to tie in the following unlikely but critical circumstance: you fall overboard and catch hold of the line which you have prudently left trailing astern and find yourself hanging on with difficulty.
What knots do you tie when you're just trying to keep your hands busy?
Big knots discussion earlier this month:
We practiced the bowline-on-a-coil and belaying someone on flat land, and then we did rock climbing, belaying each other.
I had a gentleman on the climbing end, who shouted "on belay" to which I responded "belay on."
Then he yelled "falling." I was sitting with my feet braced, and I'd practiced holding with my legs instead of my arms, so I was able to keep him from getting hurt. I guess nowadays I could monetize that, if I had it on video.
In a previous job I had to constantly take my office master key out of my pocket and put it back. Before long I made a lanyard for it with a brass clip to go on a belt loop and a regular split ring on the other end, both attached with a normal bowline. After a short period, maybe a few weeks to a month, I noticed it loosening up. I retied it with double round-turn bowlines on each end, and it held together like that for years.
I think what I really need is a flowchart (what are you tying to what else? what kind of cordage do you have? what kind on the other end, if applicable?) with a list of knots at one end, with their various strengths and weaknesses.
The jargon is a bit of an issue, too.
If you want to expand your list a little, here are some additional useful ones: double fisherman's, adjustable grip hitch, sheet bend, trucker's hitch.
Edit: I suppose this is more useful with a little additional commentary. The reef knot is so common that you should know it and know how to avoid the granny knot and also when not to use it (e.g. as a bend). You can use the alpine butterfly as a bend and also for quite few other things. It is more versatile than the bowline (e.g. if you need a loop that doesn't slip) and works fine as a bend (very smiilar to the Zeppelin bend).
Even under the "bend" page in Wikipedia, sometimes the knots are merely described.
I think a flow chart of when to use a knot is a great idea! Please make it!
I might be able to make the flowchart if I understood knots; I might be able to understand knots if I had a flowchart. If we had ham, we could make ham and eggs, if we had eggs.
For non-critical use(In my limited experience, some of my choices are as much about ease of tying as actually picking the right one, some of these are things I've only used once or twice or never used for anything important):
If you want to tie two ropes together, use a sheet bend. or a double for more security, or the slipped version to be able to undo it. Add a stoper knot for even more security.
If you want to make a loop in the middle of a rope, alpine butterfly.
If you want to adjust tension, tautline hitch.
If you are tying thin spectra cord, or making a permanent attachment between thin cord and something else, try a uni-knot. Note that it's not actually considered the standard for tying to carabiners, but I use it sometimes(For non climbing purposes).
If you are tying a bundle together, try gliepnir or a standard shoelace knot, or a clove hitch.
If you are tying a rope to a fixed pole, try a clove hitch. It's not perfectly secure. Maybe try gliepnir too. Honestly bundles and hitches are the two uses I'm least sure of. There are apparently better things than the clove hitch, but it's easy and good enough probably.
If you want to tie something you can undo really, really fast, use a highwayman's hitch.
If you want to tie something someone else might need to untie, shoelace knot which is a doubly slipped square knot, it advertises visually that it's meant to untie.
Might want to just use a regular overhand though, the Ashley stopper is hard to undo.
If you want to cause a real nightmare for anyone untying something, or remove unwanted fingers by circulation loss, constrictor knot.
If you want to make the end of a rope not go through a hole, Ashley stopper. You can also use this, or just a simple overhand, to keep another knot from slipping.
If you want to do something involving climbing, do not listen to me, I know nothing about it.
I found this veritasium video helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DBhTXM_Br4&pp=ygULa25vdCB0a...
I like history, but I don't often encounter old technology with that level of modern relevance, so it really seems like something special. I'm surprised they don't make a bigger deal about learning them, like some people do about cursive.
What's kind of amazing is that it's from when there were still a few commercial sailing ships around.