Bowlines

[prv]

I find the carrick bend has a tendency to capsize so avoid using it. It's recommended for large hawsers that have to pass over windlasses.

In steel wire on drums it stays uncapsized, yes (and I suspect we may have learned that from the same people ). In cordage, though, it's meant to capsize - just make sure it has long enough tails and it's fine.

Pete

 

[prv]

I still coil warps in the Royal Engineers way even though noone else in the boaty world seems to have come across it.

So how's that then?

Like all these things it's much easier to show than to describe, but I'll try.

Before you start coiling, turn the last six inches of the line back on itself to make a bight. Then coil as normal.

To secure the coil, wind the last foot or two round it, over the two "legs" of the bight you originally made. Note that you don't bring the sides of the coil together like for a gasket hitch or similar - the winding turns go only round one part of the coil so that the whole thing remains an open circle. Ideally you should have about four or five wrapping turns - too many and it starts to take a bit too long to undo.

When you get to the very end of the rope, you put it through the original bight. You then pull on the other end sticking out from under the wrapping turns, which draws the bight up to the turns and firmly traps the end that was passed through it. To undo it, you tug outwards on the trapped end, which reverses the drawing-up action a little and lets you undo it all.

Probably not clear enough to learn from, but hopefully enough to recognise if you already know it.

This isn't the fastest or most elegant coil, but what it's very good at is staying together in a locker etc. Sappers make it in slippery black polyprop which they then throw carelessly into a vehicle bin with all kinds of other odds and sods, drive manically around for days or weeks while stirring the contents of the bins by pulling things in and out, and then when they need the rope they'll probably just grab a random part of the coil and yank on it. This coil will come out just as tight and secure as it went in. I like it for mooring warps that get dropped into general-purpose deck lockers, for much the same reason.

Pete

 

[Hamma]

Like all these things it's much easier to show than to describe, but I'll try...

Pete

That sounds really interesting, but hard (for me at least) to visualise. Has anyone got a link to a picture or a possible name, or any further details? I'd like to try it.

 

[ctelfer38]

The Bowline

I'll risk it. It's wet and windy at the moment and I have nothing better to do.
In some quarters the bowline with the end outside the loop is called a 'German Bowline'. That alone is enough for me.
But also look at a German Bowline under strain and the knot is not lying so straight and flat as a 'proper' bowline.
CBT

 

[Deleted member 36384]

Sappers and Alpine Coils

That sounds really interesting, but hard (for me at least) to visualise. Has anyone got a link to a picture or a possible name, or any further details? I'd like to try it.

Cant vouch for the coil, but every time I hear the word Sapper I am reminded of Commando Mag. You will find a picture in one of these Magazines.

In fact I know exactly what PRV is talking about as "Action Man" had a series of accessories and one was a solid, plastic moulding of coiled rope, exactly as described.

Probably not clear enough to learn from, but hopefully enough to recognise if you already know it.

Anyway, I am waffling as usual; a picture, video instruction and pictorial guide to tying. Its also called the Alpine Coil

 

[pteron]

Pass the rope round an object and tie an overhand knot, as if you were about to tie a bow. Now hold the main part of the rope loosely and pull firmly on the short end. What you have now is the rabbit hole, the tree and the rabbit above ground. Pass the rabbit round the tree and back down the hole and the job is done.

While I'm in full flow, here is the slipknot method:

Take the rope and, far enough from the end to leave enough for the loop, loosely tie a simple slip knot. Pass the end of the rope round the bollard or whatever and back through the eye of the slipknot. Now capsize the slip knot by pulling out the loop and hey presto - a bowline. Easier to do than to describe and there are two ways to tie the slipknot and only one produces the right result. The benefit is that you can approach the situation with the knot 90% complete. Particularly good for one-handed work.

Not sure if this is the same or a variant of the above:

instead of the slipknot you make a marlinspike hitch which is simpler as it just involves two twists. Then pass the end around the bollard and in and out of the hitch (where the marlinspike would sit). Capsize it by pulling on the standing end rather than the loop.

 

[snowleopard]

Not sure if this is the same or a variant of the above:

instead of the slipknot you make a marlinspike hitch which is simpler as it just involves two twists. Then pass the end around the bollard and in and out of the hitch (where the marlinspike would sit). Capsize it by pulling on the standing end rather than the loop.

If you take the marlinespike out of the hitch you have my slipknot so yes, the same method.

 

[WindyOut]

Germans are bitter-end-out people like the Dutch, bless 'em. That's the way I learnt my bowlines too. Far easier IMHO.

Windy

 

[DaveS]

That's how I coil mine: it was the standard method of coiling climbing ropes in the early 1970s when I learned it. (I have noticed that modern climbers now do it differently, though.)

 

[prv]

Anyway, I am waffling as usual; a picture, video instruction and pictorial guide to tying. Its also called the Alpine Coil

That's nearly what I do, and the end result looks almost identical, but it's not quite the same. My method makes the bight in the starting end of the rope rather than the finishing end.

It is of course quite possible that what I was taught was simply a misremembering of this.

Pete

 

[prv]

I have noticed that modern climbers now do it differently, though.

Presumably with a butterfly coil across the shoulders? That's what I've seen on the very small amount of climbing I've done. I like that for the way you can then strap it neatly down the middle of your back using the ends.

Pete

 

[DaveS]

Butterfly coil

No, I have seen that, but it wasn't what I meant.

I see climbing rope coils which look as if they're finished off more like "yachty" style, which I guess gives a more compact shape that will drop into a rucksack more easily than the traditional coil. We need a still-active climber to ask: Jimi?

 

[Sybarite]

= a German bowline.

 

[marklucas]

I believe there are actually there four ways a bowline can present itself.

In and Out / Up and Down.

Other than jib sheets, I never use them. You can't undo them under tension, nor tension a line whilst tying it. Round turn and two half hitches - just perfect for the job.

Now a double or triple bowline - a perfect impromptu bosun's chair - but who has been shown how to tie one?

More thoughts to add to the mill.