Knots, knots, knots

Hello all,

Haven't been around this website or climbed for the past few years so here I am re-learning all of my knots. As I re-learn them I am curious about some of the particulars of these knots. I remember that Ashley's is the Bible of knots, but I wonder how much modern testing techniques are being used to prove or disprove the "goodness" of some of these knots and especially to rate them by order of "goodness?" Is it pointless to know six different bends?

Dave

Understand that the following is my opinion. Yes, it is pointless. For climbing all you need to know is the Blake's hitch, figure eight, anchor hitch and/ or the double fisherman's loop. For good measure the slip knot and prusik. For general practical purposes add a bowline and running bowline. There. That's it. If you're doing SRT then ask some of the gear wizards here what all you may need for that.

I like to keep my system real simple.

Here's a knot (bend) I use when I want to extend the length of my climbing line, called the Vice Versa knot, or Reever bend. There is some esoteric discussion about which is which, and I've found that pretty hard to fathom. In this case, I joined 50' of Hi Vee to my 150' Arrowfrog climbing line, as I needed the extra length to set a basal anchor. I like everything about it. It's easy to tie, and relatively easy to untie after it's been loaded. If you look closely, you can see that the loaded portion of both parts describes a straight line.

How comfortable to you feel if that knot/bend gets totally unloaded and is far below you and out of view? Maybe your answer is "very," but I use a triple-fisherman for such a job, and feel very comfortable about that.

This is a picture of the knot on the way back down. After being loaded and unloaded a few times, it remained unchanged. So, to answer your question, I feel comfortable with it.

I remain unconvinced. No offense intended! Maybe if it were backed up by having the tails double-fisherman'ed onto their own loaded parts? Although--at that point--I'd be back to thinking a triple-fish ain't broke so I wouldn't fix it. And since this thread started with the question of how to keep from learning more knots than are really necessary, I think this falls into the category of more than are really necessary.

No offense taken! In the business and sport of tree climbing, we are literally putting our lives on the line, so we want to make sure we're not being foolhardy. If you look into it, you'll find that this knot is quite highly regarded. That being said, for me, learning and trying new things is a necessary part of what tree climbing is all about. That does entail taking risks, but they're calculated risks. So I go into this with thought and reverence. I like the rule about trying new things low and slow! I'm very comfortable with the double fisherman's loop, or scaffold knot, as a life line connection to my saddle.

That is indeed an interesting knot.

As a general question I wonder what sort of bend radius would keep a rope from losing significant strength?

By the way, to give credit where credit is due, I believe I saw this first on one of Moss's posts on Canopy Chatter.