It’s a “bend”. Used to “bend” two lines together. I think one of it’s better uses
is to join two lines of different size?
The Carrick Bend is use to join HEAVY ropes/hawsers so that the bend will comfortably go round a capstan/winch if necessary.
Gordon
I think one of it's better uses is to join two lines of different size?
It is normally used where the lines are of the SAME size, not different sizes. When put under strain it collapses into a knot without much of a smooth surface. When used around a capstan, its working ends would be seized to the standing part so that the bend lies flat (more or less). That’s how I have seen it used successfully. Good animation on a different post here… ;D
SR
Usefull varation on the truckers hitch: http://home.hetnet.nl/~splits/knots63/6.htm
Willeke
Hi SR,
The working ends opposed and then deliberately colapsed formation is aswsomely strong and the line most often breaks somewhere else or ruptures some hardware. This is a great knot and this is why the Zep, Hunter, Butterfly et al have to work so hard to stand up. The refered to bends are younger and may work to the top. Some are very fast to tie. Some are easy to remember. Time will sort out the best.
I think that the essential knots are the knots that we use on a regular basis. Therefore there will only be 10 or less essential knots, I think that a list of essential knots should include:
- Reef knot
- Bowline
- Clove Hitch
- Figure of eight knot
- Overhand knot
Alot of people say that the sheepshank is a useful knot but I have never found the need to use it in a damaged piece of rope. I just cut the rope and tie it together with a reef knot. Am I doing the wrong thing?
Yes David,
you are doing the wrong thing.
Never use a reefknot to tie two pieces of rope together.
The reefknot is likely to fail, and sometimes with a dissaster as result.
There are many knots, called bends, to use instead.
The sheetbend is the best known, the carrick bend for thick rope, and many more.
Willeke
PS. read reply 13 on page one of this thread to find a use for a sheepshank.
i was tied up Sunday (like a good knottier) in think tank mode (so i missed chat again) making presentation for Girl Scouts. i guess that is befitting, cuz last year they called me a Soccer Mom! But it was cool; as the other Soccer Moms were quite a lot of fun to hang with! i gave the Scouts each a 4’ piece of bright red 3/8" line with 1 end taped in brgiht blue and opposite in bright yellow that we all tied knots with as we went along. Went pretty well.
i put this together for an accompanying handout: Knots to Know 101. Worked and learned some more about drawing knots; with depth of field/ shadowing and also revealing part of line behind spar etc. i try to show here theories of presenting like lacings and how learning 1 can give you a few; instead of L-earning each one as a seperate mountain to conquer.
Pix looked better on paper and especially in flash that i drew them with; than this .pdf format. i used Flash; cuz still dream about beating problems of animating knots with these types of colors and shadowing. The new version of Flash lends itself more to this target. Each line is drawn then copied and edited 4x to get the colors and shadowing. The shadowing is harder to do on the white background for printing. When i do it online in Flash, will use black background and shadow everything; but shadows will only show when on top of something automatically; and not when on the black background! So, i guess i’ve figured out part of it!
Any hints on art strategies etc. appreciated. Some day i’m gonna get this stuff write!
-KC
aka TheTreeSpyder
Hmmm, but I’m trying to picture what sort of Sheepshank it is that Alice fixes with
ONE HUNDRED FEET of line !! ?? :o --is it relatively short and stocky (many back’n’forths),
or a lonnnnnnnnnnng trad. structure which would make about 50’ long (and which would be
a problem for that going-through-the-redirection-block you described? And this recurs (with
even more total slack)? If she’s at the log, there could be an eye-knot at that point from the log
to which the rest of the haul line was tied with a becket hitch, which could be released and
quickly retied, the growing slack joining the log in being hauled each time!? Otherwise, at
the SUV end, I’d think a new hitch would be cast, excess rope making a growing pile inside.
(Or, at either end, maybe one of those Flying/Tugboat Bowlines would come in handy, using
a toggle in an eye-to-eye joint at the log vice Becket Hitch.)
This week I have mostly been using,
Bowline- pulling tree roots out
Timber hitch- on big lumps of concrete
Constrictor- on bin bags
Packers knot- on piles of books
Zeppelin bend- on my keys
Simple Simon over- joining ropes to pull out concrete
Portuguese sennit- making bracelet
Stevedores knot- on conkers
Jug sling- on my water bottle
Marlinespike hitch- on thin cord.
I nearly had to go look up the Icicle hitch, for pulling up tree roots, but the constrictor did the job.
Ey up!.
You know what , people…its a refreshing change to see that someone takes care to maintain an interest in the essentials…for years I believed it was just meholding on to daft notions of what I learned in pre-sea school…
I reckon I,ve got to the stage, where I am just beginning to recognise the fact that , “I had forgotten that I,d already forgotten”
But, on topic, it still amazes me to get aboard some ship and find that your deckies are completely lost at basic rope skills. Sadly, it seems often like, if theres no loadbinder , webstrap or Tirfor (comealong) at hand, then theyre sunk; heaving lines fall off; no-one can rig stages or bosuns chairs; and forget all about old time gangway rigging. Management ops manuals and working practises criteria, have kicked into touch any ideas or ever using a extempore rig, for lifting anything!
These people are not stupid, they just aint been trained in seamans ways, by seamen. Please dont take that as a blanket condemnation of nautical education, its not meant to be ( and I once,briefly, used to be a Nautical Science teacher.)
The most commonly seen examples of ropeskill, would seem to involve enormous amounts of round turns , a single half-hitch and a very large dollop of that ,awfully invasive , duct tape. My old seamanship teacher would turn in his grave.
I do what I can , to fetch ,em up to scratch…mostly by leaving a few examples laying around and, sure enough, they,ll always get around to asking…and then doing. And, in short order, theres an email from the owners, kicking up stink about the invoices for all this new rope! Happy days.
I would be very happy, that the lads could set, bowline, sheetbent, clove, rt and two halfs, constrictor.
Rant over,people, you have the floor.
Sithee!
Walrus
Sorry Dan, Alice can stand in one spot and haul the bight to be tucked.. pullling most to the slack. She can then take a pace or two and haul in some feet or if needs be some hundreds of feet and take another half hitch… why would the bight need to have the hitch at the bight end? It isn’t rocket science.. we do this all the time. She can do this to keep me from driving over the slack and still never messabout with either end. Ain’t kilt her yet. Who said the bight needed to be half hitched at or near the tip of the bight? We do this poop all the time. She shuffles to the left, she shuffles to the right. but we don’t call it “balling the jack”. The whole idea is to keep me from driving over the slack or running over my sweet Alice… and you know what a messs that makes? Please, just know that we do this task with this knot and that if you can not see it then please visit us and haul in some wood (we need the help). Golly, you think I need to lie about my day to day life? So the sheepshank has no use and you can “haul away Dan”. Well I won’t go there as I have so much respect for you and your posts and mail. I’ll tell you what: Get your car. Get a log. Get your life mate. Put garbage cans or old buckets to limit the car travel. Haul away to the posted barrier and then stop. Back up and have the “mate” take up slack (if you want to teach Alice a second knot you are at great risk) and “haul away Dan”. Then back up and have the mate overhaul the line (sheepshank or other) and you can haul away again. I poop you not, this is what we do. Now, you and I can do this faster and with less effort… but this is my Alice and if you have taught your significant other 10 other knots then God bless you. Sorry to have made a fuss but this is how we move wood (and many other things). You should see me on the roof, Alice at the belay and me on the Spanish Bowline. Walk in my clogs and then ask me..
Hi Walrus,
You are absolutely right about the sailors! The sailors I have trained know to use the right knot in the right place, but when I travel on other people’s vessels - boy, howdy! The skipper’s response is usually “I haven’t found a use for more than one knot - a bowline - I can do anything with it” to which comment I usually throw all kinds of knots all over the ship (stopped clove hitch, buntline hitch, RT + 2HH, cleat hitch, pile hitch, constrictor, bowline on a bight, jug sling, rosendahl bend, fisherman’s knot, anchor bend, rolling hitch, etc.) and wait for his crew to ask him how come it works so much better Lindsey’s way? Passive aggressive response I guess… :
Lindsey
PS - Dan - how is that list for sailors to use ;D? I use more but not on every trip…
The bight doesn’t need to have the hitch at the end when finished, but as the ends
of the rope aren’t available the hitch must pass around the bight end en route to
wherever it ends up–and I don’t see how this is efficiently done?! --and with so
much rope to haul through that hitch. Perhaps you can explain?
Please, just know that we do this task with this knot and that if you can not see it then please visit us and haul in some woodWhile that would be fun, no doubt, and helpful (once I got *trained*), it's an expensive (time, effort, $) way to learning a knot use.
Golly, you think I need to lie about my day to day life?No, but my imagination and some fiddling with rope has helped me only so far to figure out how Alice gets on making a Sheepshank under the circumstances you lay out. Really, who reading this can figure how to quickly haul so much rope and then cast a Sheepshank in it such that most of the remaining in-tension (upon hauling) line is available (i.e., so that the half-hitches/turns of the Sheepshank are close together, with hugely long bight ends (or one long/short). You'd have to be hauling the bight through one hitch to begin, then maybe cast the hauling side's hitch over a small bight remaining. I just don't see how this works well. (And suggest that the silence from others is because they're not taking such an interest in this item.)
One could hitch bights of the slack bight (there would thus be double
bight-ends hitched–2 loops nipped), and make interlocked loops
with a Sheepshank form; but there is a simpler way … .
Rather, the most efficient method I’d say is to haul away w/o concern
for any knot, then form a bight in the log side and tie a Lapp Bend
with the hauling side–which makes it a Slipped Lapp Bend. This not only
is perhaps optimally time-material-/effort-efficient, but unties quickly
by pulling on both ends. (There are other similar forms one can make
with a turn or few extra; and the Sheet Bend w/bight could similarly
be formed, doubling either half of that knot (bight or hitch part).)
(NB: The Lapp Bend release more easily than the similar becket hitch
one might tie if first making an eye in the to-the-log side.)
–dl*
[ed. to replace “Eskimo Bwl” with “Lapp Bend”, & clarify “NB”]
Hi Dan,
Try to think of this as pulling in three times the length of what you make into a sheepshank? If Roy travels ten feet forward and then backs up by ten feet, the log has moved ten feet forward. Alice makes a S/S three feet long with her line passed to (Roy) and fro (Alice) making two bighted pieces, the extra one foot taken up in the hitches slipped over each end. Roy drives forward another ten feet and backs up again. Now the log has moved twenty feet. Now Alice has twenty feet of line to make into a six foot S/S. The one part of this that I like is that it is easy to make and break. There are obviously not that many straight line distances involved in forestry, otherwise a straight pull would be all it would take. Why, with the unloaded part of the S/S you could even just pull that out each time and not have to re-make the half hitches! And so it goes… ;D
Lindsey
Hi Lindsey;
You can come haul wood with us any day! Yes! Now we all have a documented use for the SS. A day of woods work and anyone can see why most logging and woods work in the Pacific North West is “clear cut” and some form of “high line” for the removal. What Alice and I do is “selective cutting” so standing trees are in the way for every job. Dead or deformed trees are what we are taking. Cheers ;D
Lindsey, you might want to try drawing a simple model to illustrate what
you are saying–and you’ll quickly see (I hope) that it doesn’t make sense!
-
Truck & log are initially well removed (the “hundred feet” bit), so there’s
not any back’n’forth between driver & log tender that’s at all efficient. -
The Sheepshank, as remarked by Roy, doesn’t assume the full length
implied by the hauled slack–else it would quickly run afoul of the re-directing
block Roy mentioned in one msg. (a long structure’s leading end too soon
abutting the block); also, though the Sheepshank has a triple-line center,
10’ of slack in a regular S. tranlates to a FIVE-foot long structure, not 3’
(picture the 10’ as a bight perpendicular to the newly hauled-straight line;
this 5’-long bight then flops forward to get it’s leading tip hitched, and that’s
a 5’-long structure, thus). (In terms of a hundred feet, we can ignore the
minor amount consumed in the half-hitch nip.)
3)
The one part of this I like is that it is easy to make …
NOT SO FAST:
you’ve misrepresented the making; I don’t see it so easy at all, though it’s
not a bear, still, you have a pile of say 80’ feet of, what, 5/8" log-hauling line
(it’s definitely not clothesline, and maybe thicker than this–Roy?), and you
have to put half-hitches over something, and you want to then reduce the
span between those Sheepshank ending hitches to a minimum so as to
have maximum haul distance (at at least the final haul, anyway–earlier
ones might be limited by the drive length so it wouldn’t matter). In any
case, Alice isn’t supposed to be jogging 50’ with the rope to make the
other end of the structure, but does it all in place.
4)
With the unloaded part of the S/S you could even just pull that out
each time and not have to re-make the half-hitches!
Here, again, I suggest you actually try to do what you write is possible!
The entire S/s is loaded or not, and if one hauls in more slack, one must
undo the leading (truck-side) hitch–that will be hauled down immediately.
(And if the other hitch is in place, then the hauling will be through that
hitch, which doesn’t seem so efficient. But, then, yeah, one could haul
away through the log-side hitch the next amount of slack (making a long
bight end beyond), and then re-cast the leading hitch over the mostly
unaffected leading bight.
- I assume that when Roy is in back-up mode, Alice needs to be pretty
smartly hauling away–and so not carefully pulling rope through a hitch
as a partial formation of the structure!?
.:. Just picture yourself with the log end and hauling end of the line
and a big pile of slack, and how you make that into a Sheepshank:
I don’t see this as other than a not-so-easy task, other than by the
bight-of-bights tactic I mentioned. (But it IS easy to, with any amount
of slack–as it’s irrelevant as long as there’s just a little to finish the knot–
to tie a slipped Lapp Bend, most efficiently! And I find that both more
secure (stable!) in tension & out, and quicker to tie/untie.
–dl*
Dan,
I think it is time to say that this is the way that works best for Roy and Alice. It might not be the best way, it might not be the way you would use. But it is the way they work and that is reported and recorded now.
You can insist there is a better way, but if Alice and Roy are pleased with the way they work now, why even try to change their working system.
Willeke
Hi Dan,
Yay what Willeke said! Here is a scan of a simple drawing - you may be right about blocks, but the principle is the same, whether or not the line goes arouind a corner. As Willeke said, if it works for Roy, why knock it?
Lindsey
Well, really, Willeke, what do you mean “it is time”? There hasn’t been a answer to exactly
how the Sheepshank with massive line comes to be formed; are you against education?
And that points to “… the way”–what I’m seeking to learn. Has anyonElse actually tried
to make a Sheepshank with a pile of line, and such that the Half-hitch nips are close
together?! Lindsey has offered some descriptions that don’t wash, so I don’t see a
successful effort there.
Consider Lindsey’s assertion “Why, with the unloaded part of the S/S you could even
just pull that out each time and not have to re-make the half hitches!”: that makes
absolutely no sense to me; how about to others? The line to be hauled–from the
backing-up vehicle, i.e.–runs into that side’s HH and then the continuation from
the HH runs into the opp. HH (log side) to be nipped: how can one not re-make (undo)
this HH and yet haul line?
There is no need to be defensive on a quest for information; if my understanding is
wrong then please simply show me where/how, but don’t throw in the towel based
on some sort of msg.-quota (Ooops, 10th msg. on topic, move along, please!).
I’ve not merely said something like “I don’t agree” and left it at that; I’ve tried quite
carefully to illustrate my understanding in hopes of clarification, and have given
my criticisms with detail so others have something to work with.
But it is the way they work and that is reported and recorded now.And can you duplicate their action by the report so far? (You've just hauled 50' of line out of a backing-up vehicle's way, casting it to your side; now, make a S/s-- where to you cast that first Half-hitch, please? And then the 2nd?)
if Alice and Roy are pleased with the way they work now, why even try to change their working system.That should be an [i]easy[/i] question to answer! Isn't part of the point of this forum to share ideas and learn, maybe getting improvements to methods & structures? Shouldn't I care enough to offer something that is a Better Mousetrap?
Here is a scan of a simple drawingUnfortunately, not for me--rather, "An appropriate representation of the requested resource /sm/index.php could not be found on this server." results.
But, maybe I’ve come to see it: the lots-of-line S/s has one of its three
parallel parts WAY long & slack–the hundred feet part? In this case, I think
it is even beneficial re stability for the Half-hitch nips to be close together,
even abutting, as the leg from each bight that leads into the 100’ slack part
will go away from the HH such as to turn it towards capsizing. So, one folds
one side into a bight, casts a HH with the opp. side around it, then forms
a bight in this opp. side’s continuing end to be nipped by a HH from the first side,
with no concern of pulling the three parallel parts out taut within the structure.
Is that it?
But that is still more tying relative to forming a (log-side) bight and
bringing the opp. side (hauled-in) line around to tuck a bight through the
1st bight’s tip to form a Lapp Bend, yes? --about half the maneuvering.
Give Alice a chance on this, okay. Poor gal, how’d she get snookered
out of driving the truck, anyway? :