Disclaimer: I am not much of a climber, nor am I a rope-access technician, nor have I sailed much beyond dingies. Don’t trust your life to any of these knots without doing some kind of course. These guys (PACI) are pros, this book (ABoK) is the classic, and this website is super helpful.
Learning the Ropes
How many times have you forgotten how to tie a bowline? If you’ve ever had trouble remembering which way the rabbit was supposed to go out of the hole, or which part of the rope was supposed to be the tree, this course is for you.
It should go without saying that if you really want to become skilled at using ropes and knots, you need to make them part of your life: go climbing or sailing or camping regularly. You’ll learn most important knots and when and how to use them much better than you could from a website, and if use you use them often enough you won’t forget them either.
This course is intended for people who do things involving knots only occasionally. My hope is that it will help you to acquire a few key knots to cover most of your needs, and also (this is my USP), that you’ll learn to see the patterns in knots so that you find them easier to learn, remember and use.
What makes a good knot?
A good knot…
- Does the job you need it to do;
- Is easy to tie (that is, easy to remember and easy to physically tie in the conditions you’re working in);
- Is secure and stable (doesn’t come undone until you want it to; doesn’t deform under tension; doesn’t dramatically weaken the rope it’s tied in);
- Is easy to verify (it’s easy to see unambiguously that it’s been tied correctly);
- Is easy to undo after use (doesn’t jam after being put under tension; doesn’t take ages to unpick);
- Is aesthetically pleasing (looks good; you feel a kind of affection for it);
“If I can only be bothered to learn one knot, which should it be?”
Somewhat disappointingly for knot connoisseurs, it turns out that there is a single knot that you can use for almost all non-critical (life endangering) uses and even for several critical ones, is incredibly easy to tie, and that everyone already knows.
It’s the simple overhand knot, which many people would simply refer to as “a knot”. It’s the knot you’d probably tie if someone gave you a piece of rope and asked you to tie a knot in the end.
The overhand knot meets most of the criteria of a good knot: it’s the very simplest knot there is, so is very easy to remember and tie; it’s secure and stable enough for most purposes; it’s easy to check; and although it’s not perfect for many things, it is in fact usable for a huge range of applications.
You can use an overhand knot in various forms for:
- making a stopper knot or point of grip on a rope;
- joining two ropes or straps together;
- forming a standing or fixed loop in the end of a rope;
- forming a standing or fixed loop in the middle of a rope;
- making a quick-release (slip) knot;
- making a noose or snare knot.
The only thing it’s not good for in its single form is in for securing a rope around an object – the form called the half-hitch – because it comes undone and hence is only half of an effective hitch, which is the word for knots-tied-around-objects. Fortunately, it can be doubled in various ways to overcome this problem – but I’ll save that for chapter 2.
The major disadvantage of the overhand knot is that it jams easily – can be very hard to undo after being loaded. It’s also so commonplace that it’s hard to love…
One knot, many forms
With these things in mind, the overhand knot‘s sheer simplicity and usefulness mean that this is the first knot that everyone should learn. You probably already know how to tie one, but it’s still worth spending a bit of time reviewing this knot because it’s a foundational component of most other knots, and understanding it well can help you learn several concepts that make a lot of more complex knots easier. Taking a bit of extra time to really master the overhand knot in all its forms will also help you to develop the knack of working with rope and to gain a better intuition for what different parts of knots are doing.
Note that many of the knots in this guide are loosely tied to make it easier to see where the rope goes. They should be tightened (“dressed”) appropriately before use.
Without further ado, I present the overhand knot variations.
Overhand Knot 1: simple overhand knot (“a knot”)
Links in the knot names take you to animatedknots.com guides.
Uses: Stopper knot; grip point on a rope.
How to: First, tie the knot as above (instructions, if you need them, here). Then try tying it in different ways and at different angles: at the end of the rope with the rope hanging down to the ground; at the end of the rope with the rope going away from you. With the rope going off to the left or to the right. In the middle of the rope.
Pay attention to what happens when you tie the knot. The core technique is to form a loop and put the rope through the “eye” created. Notice in particular how the working end of the rope needs to cross over the main or “standing” part, wrap around the rope and come through from the other side. Try tying it without crossing over behind the knot in the correct way and you’ll find that you can’t (it seems obvious here but this is the error at the heart of most failed attempts to tie a bowline). See how many ways you can tie the knot: cross in front of the rope to the left, then to the right. Cross behind the rope left and right too. See if you can tie a line of knots like this:
Have a close look at them and compare them alongside each other – turn them front and back, flip them end to end. You should have two pairs of knots where the knots in each pair are the same as each other but with different orientations, but have the opposite “handedness” (or “chirality”) to the other pair.
Overhand Knot 2a: standing loop at the end of a rope (“overhand knot on a bight”)
Uses: making a loop that can be hung on or thrown over something; attaching a rope to a fixed point.
How to: Take the end of the rope, double it over to form a sort of loop (this is called a “bight”), and tie an overhand knot by treating the two parts of the rope as if it was a single rope:
Overhand Knot 2b: standing loop in the middle of a rope (also an “overhand knot on a bight”)
Uses: making an attachment point in the middle of a rope. A row of these could be used to hold hangers or tools.
How to: Do the same thing by forming a bight (loop) in the middle of the rope instead of at the end, and tying the knot as usual.
Overhand Knot 2c: standing loop at the end of a line around an object or attachment point (“rethreaded overhand knot”)
Uses: making a loop to hang something with; attaching a rope to a fixed point that doesn’t have an opening to allow a pre-made loop to enter.
How to: Tie an overhand knot loosely, leaving plenty of rope at the working end (the end you’re going to put through the attachment point). Pass the working end around or through the attachment point, then feed the rope back through the knot, following the path of rope exactly.
Overhand Knot 3: offset overhand bend or flat overhand bend (also sometimes called the EDK)
Uses: For joining two ropes of similar size together. This knot – carefully tied and dressed and with “tails” of at least 30cm (or a forearm’s length) is used by professional climbers for abseiling / rappelling. The “offset” nature of the knot (the body of the knot is not directly in line with the direction of tension in the rope) apparently helps it cope better with cliff edges and makes it less likely to get stuck than a bigger knot when being pulled down after use.
How to: Hold two ropes parallel with their ends level. Tie an overhand knot as if the two strands were one rope. Carefully tighten, making sure you’ve left at least 30cm of “tail”.
Overhand Knot 4: overhand rethread bend
Uses: To join two ends of a rope to make a loop. To join two ropes neatly for non-critical purposes.
How to: Tie a loose overhand knot in the end of one of your ropes, then thread the second rope through the not, making sure they follow each other neatly and aren’t crisscrossed or wound around each other each other within the not.
Overhand Knot 5a and 5b: slip knot or slipped knot and noose knot or snare knot (good video here)
These are usually referred to as different knots but are structurally identical, it’s just a matter of perspective on which end of rope you want to pull to close the loop.
Uses: Slip knot – an easy-to-release stopper knot; Noose knot – for a nose that tightens when the standing end of the rope is pulled, e.g. to secure a rope on an object or as a snare.
How to: Make an “eye” or loop in the rope as if you were going to tie a normal overhand knot, but instead pull through a loop (“bight”) of doubled rope. If you pull through the working end, you’ve made a slip knot. If you pull through the standing end, you’ve formed a noose knot.
It’s worth spending a bit of time getting a feel for how the both versions work and making sure you can reliably tie the one you want each time. In the picture above you can see how one side of the rope forms the knot while the other side simply slips through. Pulling on the slipping side will tighten the loop and release the knot if it is not tied around anything.
Overhand Knot 6a: Half-hitch and half-knot
Uses: Not very useful on its own (it pulls through under little tension), but very useful when doubled (see part 2) and the foundation of a huge number of other knots.
The half-hitch is tied at a slightly different angle (see link above) but basically it’s the same knot.
How to: You probably already know how to tie this – it’s the knot most people begin with when they’re tying their shoelaces. Note that it can be tied with two ends of rope, tucking one under the other and pulling on both to tighten (as in shoelaces), or at one end of a rope by wrapping the rope around a post or through an eye, and tucking the rope under itself.
A hitch is the word for the type of knot that is tied around something, and which usually deconstructs if you remove the object from its middle (a bit like how a noose does). Pay attention to what happens if you tie a half-hitch around something, then remove the object and tighten the knot – you end up with a simple overhand knot. (Please comment if this is the first time you’ve realised that the base of the shoelace knot was the same as an overhand knot – it took me years to realise because the form is so different when tied on a shoe compared to in a loose rope).
Overhand Knot 6b: Slipped half-hitch
Uses: Not very useful apart from for tying up something uneven and that expands against the loop like pillows – but a good example of another way to slip a knot. Tied with both ends slipped, this is the top knot that most people use tying their shoelaces.
How to: As with the half-hitch / half-knot, but pull a bight (loop) of rope through instead of the end of the rope.
Conclusion
All in, that’s ten different variations of the same basic knot structure. In the next installments we’ll look at combining overhand knots – in the meantime let me know if there are any you think I’ve missed.
See also: