Join Ropes and Make Attachments

The loaded rope can transmit a pull only if its end remains connected. Another rope, the eye at a sail corner and a post present different receiving shapes. A useful fastening must match the shape and the way the load will arrive.

A knot arranges a rope so that its own bends and contacts hold, join, bind or stop it. Pulling the standing part tightens some contacts and can loosen others. The working end may be trapped beneath a loaded turn; an eye may remain a fixed size or close around an object. These are physical differences in the connection, not merely alternative names for a tangle.

Join two ends

A bend normally joins the ends of two ropes. Suppose one line is too short and a second must continue its pull. Form a bight in the end of the thicker rope. The thinner rope’s end passes through that bight, around the outside of both its legs, then beneath its own standing part where it first entered. Its two sides now grip the receiving bight, and its standing part traps its returning end. This is a sheet bend. In the usual correctly arranged form, the two free ends emerge on the same side of the knot.

The geometry can join equal-sized ropes as well. With markedly unequal sizes, the larger, stiffer rope supplies the receiving bight while the more flexible rope makes the surrounding turns. A double sheet bend adds a second circuit around the bight before the end is secured beneath its own part. That increases contact and keeps the smaller line wrapped around the two receiving legs. It does not double the rated strength of the rope or make every slippery material suitable.

An existing eye can replace the receiving bight. If the smaller line passes through an attachment eye, around its neck and back under its own part in that same arrangement, it makes a becket bend, also called a becket hitch. A becket here is the existing eye or loop receiving the attachment. The incoming rope pulls through the eye into the object carrying it. The historical name bend survives even though this version fastens to an attachment rather than joining two free rope ends.

The sheet name has a working connection too. Period seamanship books show a sheet fastened to the eye at a sail’s clew by this family of arrangement. That is evidence of its sailing use, without establishing when or where the knot was invented.

A carrick bend spreads the interweaving differently. Picture a loop laid in the first rope, its end passing beneath its standing part at the crossing. Lay the second rope beneath both sides of that loop. Carry its end around the outside of the first rope’s crossing, over the first rope’s standing part and under its tail. Bring the end back across the loop’s opening: over the first rim encountered, under the second rope’s own standing part and over the far rim. The resulting two interlaced loops form a flat, roughly symmetrical pattern, with the two tails at diagonally opposite corners. Each rope turns around and is confined by parts of the other.

Traditional accounts associate the carrick bend with large cordage. If its tails are secured back alongside their standing parts, it can retain that spread arrangement. Left without those bindings, the correctly formed knot draws up into a more compact shape under load. Its attractive flat appearance is therefore one state of the connection. A wrong crossing or both tails on the same side changes the knot’s behaviour. The load must be traced through the actual interweaving, and enough free end must remain after it settles.

Make an eye that stays the same size

For a line going around an attachment, a fixed eye can be more useful than a join between two separate ropes. In a bowline, the standing part first makes a small crossing loop. The working end travels around the intended attachment, comes back through that small loop, circles the standing part and returns through the small loop beside its incoming path.

The small loop nips the two passing portions; the end’s circuit around the standing part forms a retaining collar. Together they keep the large attachment eye from simply drawing closed.

Pulling the line now loads the fixed eye. The size chosen during tying remains substantially fixed when the knot is properly arranged and loaded in its intended direction. Its security still depends on rope, free-end length and loading. Smooth high-performance fibres, repeated slackening or a force spreading the eye’s sides can make that same knot slip or come apart.

A running bowline uses that fixed eye as a sliding guide. Make the bowline so that its eye encloses its own standing part. The larger loop beyond it can then grow or shrink as the standing part slides through the small fixed eye. Pulling closes the larger loop around the object. The bowline itself remains fixed; the rope running through it produces the changing size.

Sometimes neither end is available. A bowline on a bight makes two fixed loops from a doubled middle portion of rope. Treat the two adjacent lengths as one while forming the initial crossing loop, and pass the closed end of the bight through it. Open that projecting bight out and carry it back around the whole developing knot until it surrounds the two standing lengths. Tightening produces a collar around those lengths and leaves the doubled material as two attachment loops. The middle of the rope has supplied the entire connection without a free end being threaded through it.

These comparisons identify three different movements. The ordinary bowline keeps one eye fixed; the running bowline lets a larger loop slide through it; the bowline on a bight creates two loops from doubled rope. Recognising the word bowline alone is not enough to tell which part will move.

Join the rope’s own construction

A knot bends whole rope around whole rope. A splice joins by interweaving its strands or by burying suitable parts inside one another. The load transfers through a length of interacting material rather than only through a compact set of whole-rope bends. The splice must follow the rope’s construction and the maker’s specified method.

Return to the three-strand rope. For a short splice, the two ends are opened into strands and brought together with each end’s strands occupying the gaps between the other end’s strands. Each loose strand is then worked over and under the intact strands of the opposite rope. Successive tucks hold the joined ends together as the loaded strands tighten around them. Because extra strand material occupies the joining region, that region becomes thicker. The joint is compact along the rope but may be too bulky to travel through a guide or block.

For a line that must travel through a guide, a long splice spreads the laid-rope join along a greater distance. Selected strands are unlaid farther back, and a strand from the opposite end is laid into each vacant helical groove. The places where strand ends meet are staggered along the rope instead of being gathered at one short swelling, preserving a more nearly uniform diameter. It consumes more length and requires careful matching of the strands; a merely elongated short splice would still contain the extra local bulk.

An eye splice turns the rope’s own end back beside its standing part to form an eye. In a three-strand version, the loose strands are tucked separately among the standing part’s strands. The eye loads its two legs, and the returned leg transfers its share into the continuing rope through those tucks. The resulting eye is a lasting prepared attachment, unlike the easily re-positioned bight from which it began.

A back splice gives the cut end a different destination. Its three strands are turned over and interlocked across the end, then tucked back into the rope beneath them. This secures the end against unlaying. It also makes an enlarged, relatively stiff finish. The back splice closes the end of one rope; the short splice joins two ropes; the eye splice returns one end to create an attachment.

Where returned material must finish, a taper reduces it gradually. Ending all the additional material at one point would make an abrupt change of thickness and flexibility. Staggering the reduction produces a more gradual transition. The permitted reduction depends on the splice; removing material arbitrarily also removes the parts needed to transfer load.

The tool used to open a passage is a fid. A traditional tapered wooden fid separates laid strands; modern splicing fids can also carry an end through a hollow braid. The tool makes room without being left in the working connection. A different piece called a fid will later appear as a support beneath a separate upper mast; here it is the splicing tool.

In a suitable hollow single braid, the end can be buried inside the rope. Pulling the outer braid makes it narrower, gripping the buried length. Locking arrangements and sufficient bury length keep the tail from withdrawing, including when the rope is slack; tapering reduces the sudden change where it finishes. A double braid can require separate work on core and cover, depending on which parts carry load. These methods developed alongside the constructions they join. A traditional three-strand tuck pattern cannot simply be transferred to a slippery hollow braid or a core-dependent rope.

Fasten to something solid

A hitch fastens a rope around an object or another rope, using that support as part of its working geometry. Remove the supporting object and the arrangement may collapse. The post, ring or hook supplies contact that the rope needs to grip.

For round turn and two half-hitches, the round turn around a post supplies the first friction. The returning end then passes around the standing part and through the loop it has just made: a half-hitch. A second half-hitch, in the same direction around the standing part, retains the end beyond the first. The post carries the main change of direction; the two half-hitches secure the returning rope. When the wrap takes some of the load, the remaining end can be controlled with less force, subject to the surfaces and loading.

The fisherman’s bend, or anchor bend, changes that attachment. It also takes a round turn around a ring or similar support, but the end then passes over the standing part and under the turns against the ring before completing the securing hitch arrangement. That tuck locks the initial turns into the connection. A further half-hitch secures the tail to the standing part. It is a hitch by its physical job despite the inherited name bend. The name does not specify the rest of an anchor connection or its required capacity.

A clove hitch puts two turns directly around the support, crossing the rope diagonally between them. The working end passes beneath that diagonal crossing after its second turn. The loaded crossing presses the other parts against the object. This can make a useful fastening where the load direction and continuing connection suit it, but it can slip along a smooth support, shake loose with changing load or tighten so hard that release becomes difficult.

A cow hitch, commonly called a lark’s head, gives a different two-part attachment. Pass a bight around the support, then pass both free lengths through that bight. Pulling those lengths draws the bight tight across them and seats the two encircling parts against the support. Both ends leaving the hitch belong to the working arrangement; loading only one while allowing the other to escape changes its security. The same form can attach a closed loop by passing one end of the loop through the other after it has gone around the support.

Some loads try to pull a hitch along the object. The rolling hitch adds gripping turns on the side towards which the load acts. In the version for a spar, two close turns lie together on that side of the standing part; a final half-hitch lies on the other side. The load, led approximately along the spar, tightens the pair of turns against it. A rope-gripping version tucks the second turn into the first so that it also introduces a small bend in the supporting rope. That helps it grip against lengthwise movement. Direction, diameter and surface friction matter: these forms can slide on unsuitable modern fibres or polished metal, so the name does not promise a universal rope brake.

Bind the object and retain the end

The sail’s reef points already have a particular job: gathering the loose cloth between the reinforced working corners. A reef knot, also called a square knot, is a binding knot suited to holding a bundle together. The two ends first cross and turn around each other in one direction, forming a half-knot. A second half-knot is made in the opposite direction. The finished ends lie beside their own standing parts, making two interlocking bights across the bundle.

The bundle supplies contact and keeps the encircling rope in place. The reef knot’s traditional sail job belongs to that binding action. It is unreliable as a general-purpose bend joining two independently loaded ropes: unequal or changing pulls can distort it into a sliding form. Binding the gathered cloth and joining two loaded line ends therefore call for different judgements even when both jobs begin with two ends in the hand.

A constrictor knot makes a tighter binding around a rounded object. Like a clove hitch it has two encircling turns and a diagonal crossing, but its ends interlock beneath that crossing. The loaded crossing bears down on the tucked parts against the object’s curved surface. This creates a persistent grip, useful for holding a small bundle or securing an end during ropework, but it can become extremely difficult to undo. A flat surface does not support the same constricting geometry.

Traditional binding can also proceed along a bundle. A marline hitch, or marling hitch, is an overhand-knot arrangement enclosing the object: the cord crosses itself around the bundle and its working end passes through the resulting loop. Successive hitches can run along it, each turn gripping locally while the connecting cord continues to the next. Removing the object leaves overhand knots in the cord. This explains its use in binding rolled fabric or temporarily holding adjacent rope parts together.

For a larger cylindrical object, a timber hitch carries the rope around it, takes the working end around the standing part and then twists that end repeatedly back around its own returning leg. The loaded loop presses these twists against the timber, trapping the end. The grip depends on that contact and continuing pull. When load disappears, the turns can loosen readily; this is a different requirement from a binding intended to remain tight through repeated slackening.

A buntline hitch is a compact attachment historically used for a buntline, one of the lines gathering the middle of a sail. The end goes around the attachment and forms a clove hitch around its own standing part, with the finishing end on the attachment side of the knot. The two half-hitches thus progress towards the object, reversing the arrangement of ordinary two half-hitches tied away from it. Pulling seats the small knot against the attachment. Its tendency to tighten under repeated movement suited that gathering duty; heavy loading can also make it hard to release. Its grip in traditional cordage does not establish its security in bare HMPE.

An open curved hook supplies the support in a Blackwall hitch. A half-hitch sits over the hook so that the loaded standing part bears over the short end against the hook’s body. The load itself helps trap that end. With slack or a changed direction, the arrangement can fall away. This is a useful explanation of historical temporary ropework, not a generally secure substitute for a closed connector. A fitting that encloses the line will give us a different kind of retention in the next chapter.

Make the end too large to pass

A line can be securely attached at one end and still disappear through a guide at the other. A stopper knot adds local bulk, so that the end cannot pass through an opening smaller than the tightened knot. Its job relies on dimensions as well as friction. An opening larger than the knot offers no stop.

In a figure-eight knot, the working end crosses the standing part to begin a loop, passes behind that standing part and returns through the original loop. The path makes two adjoining lobes, giving the knot its figure-eight name. When it seats against a suitably small opening, its bulk prevents further travel. It can loosen when repeatedly shaken, and a large opening may need a different stopper.

A stevedore knot adds turns before the end returns through the starting loop. In the version considered here, the end makes two complete turns around the standing part before passing back through the bight. This creates a longer, bulkier stopper than the simple figure eight. Ropework names and intermediate-turn variants differ among references; the actual extra turns and final size are more useful than assuming the label establishes a standard dimension.

On a light throwing line, a monkey’s fist forms a roughly spherical knot, giving the end useful bulk and mass for throwing. One group of turns is surrounded at right angles by a second group, and a third group passes through the first and around the second, locking the groups together as they are drawn tight. Putting a hard heavy weight inside turns the arriving end into a dangerous projectile; the rope ball’s throwing purpose supplies no justification for that addition.

A connection can help with the pull

One more arrangement leads towards machinery. In a trucker’s hitch, a line is secured at one attachment and has a fixed loop formed partway along it. The working end travels around a second attachment, returns through that loop, then leads back towards the second attachment for pulling. The folded route allows a longer pull on the end to tighten the shorter distance between the loop and the second attachment. After tensioning, hitches retain the end.

This is a temporary purchase, an arrangement exchanging increased rope travel for reduced effort in an ideal comparison. Here the rope rubs over rope and around the attachment, so friction greatly reduces the possible advantage while also helping hold the gain during securing. The exact force relationship depends on which part moves and where the hand pulls. Rolling sheaves will let us examine that exchange more clearly.

The rope can now continue through a join, end in a prepared eye or grip a support. Each arrangement still delivers its pull into something beyond the rope. The next load path runs through the supporting hardware and into the hull.