Finally found the the actual newspaper article in which #1425A ‘Hunters bend’ was published.
Content was written by Philip Howard of “The Times” Newspaper - 06 OCT 1978.
This newspaper article was the trigger that launched the IGKT!
Historic images attached…
Note that the knot as depicted in the 1978 newspaper article is tied with Z/Z chirality.
Note also the claim that this end-to-end joining knot can be used with tow ropes… (clearly the notional concept of jamming wasn’t a consideration).
Of course, claims of originality are often refuted - and history had proven this many times.
As it turns out, Phil D Smith had already published his ‘Riggers bend’ in 1953 - some 25 years before The Times newspaper article! Oops…
Refer attached image to see how Phil arrived at his Riggers bend by transforming #1053 derived Butterfly bend.
The third paragraph compares discovering a new knot to discovering a comet - and that Dr Hunter is; “about to join a select company”…along with notions of “immortality”!
By that metric, I guess Xarax must also have achieved immortality
I can just barely (no magnifying glass at hand)
make out the obituary’s assertion that SmitHunter’s
bend was the first knot authenticated in 50yrs.
This seems at odds esp. given the dates as nylon
emerged within that time, and anglers seem to be
pretty active at coming up with new knots, esp.
for the then new material nylon!
Also, it was only subsequent to the Dr. Hunter
breakthrough (into public awareness) but prior
to the inclusion of his knot into [u]ABoK that
the “zeppelin” joint broke out into a magazine;
too bad that that didn’t go into the book as well.
(We are still guessing at its history.)
EDIT NOTE: I have made a few updates to this paper.
Hit your refresh button when downloading (to force your browser to accept new version) - if you had previously downloaded a copy.
