Quick one for StuM and other knot lovers

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

I sometimes tie a granny knot just to get a reaction from SWL

Forming a Granny's come naturally particularly in the dark, and are quite useful knots for keeping your shoelaces from inadvertently untying, especially when you double the granny, which then makes for a Great Granny. Hmmm, I wonder if there any other Great Knots?

Now as to untying a taut granny so as to be able remove your boots that's when the difficulty arises.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Montanan

Now, can anyone show me how to redress a Lubber Knot into a Bow Line Knot, especially when the Lubber Knot is taut?

That would be a very useful maritime skill.

I am finding all this talk of Granny knots highly stressful. Would you like an introduction to a good friend of mine, the Zeppelin bend? I am sure I would be able to persuade you to switch teams.

SWL

[a64pilot]

I don’t know myself, in all honesty I’m in the camp that says if you can’t tie a knot, tie a lot.
It is one area that I am really weak in, a little embarrassing

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Here is the solution:

Tie a loose Oysterman’s whichever way you prefer (starting with a slip knot as I have done here and as Ashley illustrates in #526, or otherwise as Grog shows).

Stop before tightening it all up. It will look like photo 2.
At this stage if you tightened the overhand, then tugged on the standing end, then the tail, you would have on Oysterman’s.

Just got back to this. (It's 7:30 am here)

You've cheated. That's not a #526 Oysterman.

You've taken the working end the opposite side of the standing end in the second photo and then gone "down" through the loop.
Do it correctly with the working end OVER the standing end and up through the loop. You get a true #526 and you can't get to a bowline from there.

To quote Grog:
"The knot is satisfyingly easy to tie with a diagram in front of you. It is also surprisingly easy to get it wrong - as I found out the hard way by getting the animation wrong initially."

[Juho]

According to the authors of this book there are 85 ways to tie a tie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_85_Ways_to_Tie_a_Tie

They used math to prove that. Maybe someone should make a study on knots in general. How many topological basic forms are there? (with transformations between different variants of each topological basic form) I guess there is an infinite number of them, but maybe we could at least allocate the basic ones each to their own topological basic form based family.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by StuM

Just got back to this. (It's 7:30 am here)

You've cheated. That's not a #526 Oysterman.

You've taken the working end the opposite side of the standing end in the second photo and then gone "down" through the loop.
Do it correctly with the working end OVER the standing end and up through the loop. You get a true #526 and you can't get to a bowline from there.

To quote Grog:
"The knot is satisfyingly easy to tie with a diagram in front of you. It is also surprisingly easy to get it wrong - as I found out the hard way by getting the animation wrong initially."

Nice try, but no cigar .

The tail has passed that way as the loop of my slip knot entered the other way.
Flip Ashley’s over and take a mirror image. It is the same.

SWL

[StuM]

Originally Posted by alansmith

Geeks

Guilty as charged. And not just WRT knots.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I don’t know myself, in all honesty I’m in the camp that says if you can’t tie a knot, tie a lot.
It is one area that I am really weak in, a little embarrassing

It's better to know a knot and not need it than to need a knot and not know it.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Nice try, but no cigar .

The tail has passed that way as the loop of my slip knot entered the other way.
Flip Ashley’s over and take a mirror image. It is the same.

SWL

It is dark here, so photos will be hard, but I will retie it exactly as Ashley did and go from there. The result will be the same. Give me a few minutes.

SWL

[Seaworthy Lass]

OK, I have modelled Ashley’s format exactly:

[Seaworthy Lass]

I have marked the portion that becomes the loop of the bowline in green:

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Nice try, but no cigar .

The tail has passed that way as the loop of my slip knot entered the other way.
Flip Ashley’s over and take a mirror image. It is the same.

SWL

OK, I see now that you have also tied the initial overhand the "opposite way round". Two wrongs don't necessarily make a right


Can you do the same if you tie initially exactly as per #526?


(Got to go now.! I'll look at it again this evening)

[Seaworthy Lass]

So now I have tied a very loose Oysterman’s exactly as Ashley has tied it in #526.

At this stage if you tightened the overhand, then tugged on the standing end, then the tail, you would have an Oysterman’s stopper, absolutely identical to Ashley’s.

Instead of tightening the overhand, gently tug on the standing end and wriggle the junction until it looks like the photo below. The tail will flip to the other side of the loop. The loop itself does not move:

[Seaworthy Lass]

Keep tugging on the standing end and miraculously a bowline appears:

[Seaworthy Lass]

If you flip the bowline over, it is the mirror image of the one I tied in the other set of photos: