Across the (p)ages of time, ABoK distills out millenniums of lessons handed down, as Mr. Ashley saw these jewels threatening to disappear, that have been so loyal to us, and in fact perhaps human intellect built along with these things as a first/primary technology leading to many basic understandings.
Beware the belief of any accuracy in most knots books --including Ashley's. Mostly what is indeed "handed down" is simply what was there to (easily) *hand* down (in contrast to authors having the wit to do real research or even thinking!). Perhaps the most egregious tome of rubbish is Hensel & Gretel's make-believe word in their
Encyclopedia of Knots & Fancy Ropework --somehow published, re-printed, expanded, and still published. It is both amazing & appalling.
I'm abashed to admit it took a small booklet,
A Letter to Lester, to open my eyes to this.
Pieter van de Griend remarked, there :
"Knot tyers --and esp. knot-book authors--
propagate initial falsehoods sufficiently often to establish them as truths."
(e.g. "The constrictor knot will bind so tightly that it must be cut off!")
Kinda same in lesson#1883 on hooks always a smaller host arc(linear sides of hook of less consequence than linear force line to arcs).
"A ROUND TURN AND Two HALF HITCHES. Any HOOK HITCH: with a double bearing is stronger than one that passes through the hook but once."
I can't find it in a quick image-search now, but there is a now pretty old (1980s?) knots-strength table produced IIRC by Samson showing --unusually, despite its relevance!-- the Anchor Bend (aka "Fish.BEND") & 2HHitches (again, IIRC, it was this sans a "round turn") for both a 5/8" ring & a 4" (?!) spar in, hmmm, 1/4"(?!) rope :: the former was weaker on the ring, and a bit stronger on the spar. .:. My surmise (all I got) is that on the larger dia. object the Anchor Bend pulled out enough tail so that its SPart ran pretty straight into tangent contact & around, whereas the 2HHs would give some bite into the SPart and have more weakening (though IIRC the diff. wasn't all so much).
Interestingly, in his first writing on knots --The Sailor & His Knots(?)-- in 1926 A. opined that the Anchor Bend should be finished w/HH and then the tail seized to the SPart ; that this would ensure that the turns didn't tighten around the anchor and ... have that wanted double bearing, really, more like a double eye knot than an hitch. --though this opinion seems to have been forgotten on writing ABoK decade plus later.
lesson#1074. "The BOWLINE with a bight is tied in the end of a pendant to
which to hook a tackle. Whenever possible a hook should have a double bearing when it is to be hitched to a rope..."
And I'll go with this and remark that the same rationale seems to apply to, well, what
should be the same eye knot, viz. #1016, got from Luce & Ward --actually, not in the older (Luce I think is who) but in Ward's revision of Luce)--, who recommended that GRAPHICALLY PRESENTED (as) single-eye knot as the proper one for rigging a light tackle for heavy pulls (no reason given what made it so). IMO, it was the 2-eye knot intended, and the artist wasn't clear on the concept (there's a lot of that going around). Hmmm, struggling w/computer ignorance (lotta that ...) --voici! (Ward)
[pardon :: I tried to isolate the bottom knot --what Ward added to Luce's work, on revision--, but apparently that takes smarts, and I've been l00king all over for them for ages.]
View attachment 79706
Now, I lost the lovely PAINT art annotation I did on this, but words can work. What appears larger in ABoK's #1016 is what appears here (Fig.218) as a nearly fully contracted ring of the knot NNW of the "F" of "Fig.", crossing over the two eye legs to team up with the tail and take twin legs into a collar and out as the single eye's legs. (NB: So un-understanding were Hensel&Gretel (<-"Graumont", but, c'mon) that they photo'd their books image JUST like this but felt in necessary to point out (oh : just eye knot, no block/hook/right side) that the eye was the thing on the right end and not the (ridiculously large) twin collars! (Btw, load it, and the SPart's initial turn is going to pull back into the collar space --because the SPart's loop like that of a sheet bend has no resistance yet to make it tighten.
.:. IMO, Ashley's rationale is what made the correct(ed) version above --where that tiny loop is pulled out as a twin eye-- just the right knot for that heavy loading; oh, that and the doubled (2x2=) 4dia for the SPart to crunch around with its 100% of load --kinder to the rope, whether any gained strength was needed or not.
"If the rope is weak and the hoist is heavy, a round tum on the standing part adds
materially to the strength of the knot"
I think that this comes from a Timber H. variation, making an RT on the SPart and then dogging the tail. IMO, Ashley's assertions about strength are often speculation; I can see how these turns could result in a weakening, like the 2HH's biting into rope vs. the Anchor Bend's lesser interference --which, yes, we must note are untested speculations from me!
knudeNoggin lends can't maximize both lessons at once
kN can't make sense of what he's doing in this sentence! (-;
<somewhere something about
.
ABoK very voluminous to ...
... count every knot. BUT, I did push myself to try to do that, so to FINALLY work to cut out the forever-parroted nonsense about ABoK "containing over /nearly /roundabout 3,900 knots" --something one should hope that anyone consulting the book, understanding the image#s, and seeing e.g. in the Index that the Clove Hitch, Bowline, ... are presented MANY MANY times, usually getting an image #, ... . .:. My count (and I was generous --e.g., a clove loaded on both ends qua "crossing knot" (or on neither, qua binder; but A. doesn't give this) was counted along with it being loaded on one end only, end hitch (but not re-counted for each size hitched-to object (ring / spar / pile)) >>>>> about 50%, 1950 roughly. (And, man, I just pretty much punted on the numerous multi-strand button/knob knots and matts and ... --most all counted.)
[quote, for Knotting Matters #153 (Dec'21, winter)]
I count 3,858 image numbers and 1,932 distinct "knots":
so, about 50%. Note that the end number 3854 is added to by
three "1/2" #s (794.5, 1034.5, & 2585.5) and (in later editions
of the book) #1425a --the knot that tied the IGKT together
(and thus which should be our logo, the knot's ends assuming
the four cardinal compass directions!).
Ch.33, Tricks & Puzzles,
gets my low count of 1 --same as for Ch.26's Holdfasts but over
twice the image #s. [One image # has only the remark that the
knot got lost!]
[edit to note : This is misleading. What I did was
first count the "knots"
in those chapters grouping functional kin (end joints, eye knots,
multiple-eye knots, ...), and then proceeded to ones I expected
would be repeating these (Occupational knots, Tricks & ...).
So, that
"low count" was net of things counted elsewhere.
]
But who asked?
*kN*
