The application is a slick vertical pole. What’s the best hitch?
I tested the good old Klemheist option on a vertical pole. It performs quite well, and possibly the best of all knots I’ve tested so far. However, as far as I know, there is no practical way to tie this option if there is a load already on the standing end. The standing end must be passed through the end loop once you wrap the loop around the pole.
EDIT: After testing many hitches, the hitches below are some of my favorites.
Absent other requirements, and assuming the load is parallel to the pole, why would the simplest not be the best? I offer a coil wound tightly around the pole away from the load, finished with two half hitches around the SP, snugged up against the coil. I forget the ABOK number for this, but do remember that Ashley calls it the well pipe hitch.
The number of tests required with different materials, conditions (wet?), pole diameters, rope diameters, loading profiles, taper shape, mood of the tester, etc., makes this a nebulous and hard to address question. My experience is that that difference in most of these dime-a-dozen hitches is not all that great, especially if you throw enough rope at the problem. Just pick one that doesn’t unwind on you and is easy for you to execute.
By the way, it’s “Gripping Sailor’s Hitch”, not “Sailor’s Gripping Hitch”. It’s a gripping version of the Sailor’s Hitch, not a Sailor’s version of a non-existent Gripping Hitch.
A few years ago I was asked to add the “Sailor’s Gripping Hitch” to my Hitches page at http://www.layhands.com/Knots/Knots_Hitches.htm, based on another website which referred to it as the “Sailor’s Gripping Hitch.”
But if “Gripping Sailor’s Hitch” is the original name then I’ll be happy to change my website to make it more accurate.
The “Well-Pipe Hitch” is ABOK #504. You’ll find that having more than four coil rings is unnecessary and can sometimes be problematic. Two Half Hitches will get the job done, but it is amazing how a Fixed-Gripper Knot instead of Two Half Hitches (or the Buntline Hitch knot) can noticeably improve the performance of the construct. A Fixed-Gripper Knot can be made tight, be pushed flush into the coil, stay put, actually aid the grip itself, and do the job noticeably better than either Two Half Hitches or (the component knot of) the Buntline Hitch.
ABOK #505 looks like a great construct, too. Of course, the main problem is that it will likely drop as soon as the connection to it (e.g., the hook) stops pulling, but whether this matters depends upon the application. Its quickness in making and removing could be the very thing needed for an application, so ABOK #505 gets my vote as another satisfying option. ABOK #505 reminds me of the Klemheist, but the Klemheist will sometimes (depending upon the position of the standing part) fail to have an adequate pull on both sides of the coil, which I feel is the main reason why many hitches grip poorly, whether temporarily.
If the gripping performance, on a vertical pole, of the “Four-Coil-Ring Fixed-Gripper Coil Hitch,” which I mentioned earlier in this thread, virtually knocked your socks off, then what I am about to mention may downright knock you off your feet:
Try making another Four-Coil-Ring Fixed-Gripper Coil Hitch on a vertical pole, but instead of using the component knot of the Fixed-Gripper Hitch (namely, the Fixed-Gripper Knot) to make your coil hitch, use the slide-and-grip structure of the Fixed-Gripper Slide-and-Grip Hitch. Take your time, dress it well, and push it well into the four-coil-ring coil a number of times, until all of the play has been completely worked out of the structure and it is as flush as possible to the coil on the pole.
Finally, try the slide-and-grip structure of the Fixed-Gripper Slide-and-Grip Hitch Variation to make your Four-Coil-Ring Coil Hitch.
But really, I’d go with an icicle hitch. I’ve been playing with the Mason Hitch just now and I like the finish on it, one thing I don’t like about the Gripping Sailor’s Hitch. Actually I think Roo’s right,
My experience is that that difference in most of these dime-a-dozen hitches is not all that great, especially if you throw enough rope at the problem.
Which the Four-Coil-Ring Coil Hitch manages nicely, grippy though it may be.
Hmm.. The Mason hitch as drawn above seems to me to be likely to be less secure than the unnamed hitch at http://davidmdelaney.com/icicle-hitch/icicle-hitch.html, because of the apparently superior way that, in the latter, the SP nips the WE against itself and the pole. It seems to me that the Mason hitch could have the same property simply by insuring (drawing) the WE closer to the pole than the SP in the loop that nips the SP and the WE, contrary to the way the cited drawing shows it.
??? By which arborists? – not Mahk Adams, nor do any of the readily
accessible images match this. As put verbally, the Distel "is like a 3:1 Clove – AND both ends are loaded. In this “Mason”, it is not a Clove,
and only one end is loaded, with an interesting nip of the end
– like a Reversed Ossel Hitch.
Those hitches in your pics have overlapping loops on the main grip around the pole. For vertical pole applications, I have found overlapping loops to reduce the grip to the pole in the vertical direction (aka, lengthwise direction). I suspect that’s why most established hitches for lengthwise pull do not have overlapping loops at the main grip around the pole.
Brion Toss’s Rigger’s Apprentice has as the Camel Hitch your version, but
with fewer turns – apparently he didn’t notice the difference w/Ashley’s.
Note that Ashley shows it pulled the opposite way but notes that
the intent is to hold in either direction; Toss seems to presume just
the opposite-way loading, and shows it as the knot of a noose-hitch.
Frankly, I’d dispense with the final Half-hitch (making the Clove) and
tie off with an Overhand stopper not instead – MUCH more secure!
Or, finish the knot (at the point of this Clove hitch) with a Reverse Cow
hitch – i.e., turn the tail in the opposite direction,
come back around on the away side from the knot (making no Half-hitch),
and then turn around your tail and go around to bring the tail
out through this turn so that the turn/bight nips it against the
lead into this “Reverse Cow” finish. The nipping is sure, and even
increased by loading the structure’s SPart in the direction you show.
(To put this in other words, in this Cow finish, the tail will reach
to the away side of it and finish on the near side; were you putting
oh Half-hitches in the usual way, it would go near to away. The
loaded part of this "Reverse Cow’ will pinch the tail against the turn.)
Nice image! Yes, that’s it (simply described (simply altered one way or another)).
And I think that --esp. for tying to a pole, in contrast to some flexible object–
this structure is less secure under load --to it I’d finish with a stopper,
if not replacing the final Half-hitch with a stopper as said above.
(I don’t trust the Clove h. to stay tied.)
Friction hitches can be tricky, and I have some skepticism about them,
in general. So much seems to depend on materials (structure, fibre,
condition, shape, flexibility, relative sizes) and forces. I recall using
a Hedden hitch in (I think) half-inch solid/flexible polyester (lubed!)
cable-hauling tape in which it held my weight initially, but on subsequent
attempts to stand on this it slid (!!?). And recently in playing around
with the ProhGrip / Blake’s Hitch, I found that I needed to slightly extend the spiral of the rope coming into the knot in order for
it to grip and then grip harder w/higher load. That said, I’ll remark
that it seems a piece of common knowledge that with standard
materials of an 8mm? kernmantle rope tied in a Prusik hitch around
11-13mm kernmantle slippage will occur at some high load. (It’s
of course possible that this “knowledge” arises from one reported
testing. And in some cases of such testing where slippage is seen,
the testing is done on a slow-pull device that takes a while to build
up force on the slipped knot, but with actual use and some mass
making that load, there’d be no such reduction in force upon the
slippage --rather, some momentum of the load.)
Also, there isn’t much presentation and research made for using some combination of friction hitches – e.g., a structure like what is
called the “Camel hitch” but in place of the Clove hitch there is
a Rolling hitch (or other friction hitch) and the load of course is
taken in the usual direction (for what I’ll call “away-end” loading
– that of the Rolling h., e.g.). As shown in the OP, the loading
is to the “near-end” , as is the Klemheist & ProhGrip.
