Tie in knots

Dumb question. What's a figure 9? I've never heard of that. 

climbing friend,

may you be discussing knot of overhand style for tie in? it is tied and retraced as the figure of 8, except it is only the overhand or "pretzel" knot and no 8 it is having. Is this legitimate or popular in the regions of Mexico from whence a climbing friend utilizing this knot has came?

also what is the brotherhood knot and would you utilize it.

Adam Ronchetti wrote: Dumb question. What's a figure 9? I've never heard of that. 

Figure 8 with an extra loop.

Some also refer to the yosemite finish on a figure 8 as a figure 9. Cleaner and marginally easier to untie.

I'll add photos when I get on my laptop. 

A figure 9 is not a bowline with Yosemite finish!   It is a figure 8 with yet another turn.  http://www.animatedknots.com/fig9loop/ I don't think there is any good reason to prefer it over a figure 8.

Jim Titt wrote: And I don´t buddy check, don´t expect to be buddy checked and think it is poor practice generally, you will be required to tie knots in an un-supervised environment in your climbing career and it is essential you can tie knots correctly, check them yourself and get in the habit of doing so. 

I agree totally, but woudn't suggest anyone change any practice they are comfortable with.  And beginners might be better served by an extra pair of eyes, but see the final remark.

I and my partners regularly use a system that requires unsupervised tying in.  On the first pitch from the ground, we don't usually have the second tie in until the leader has established a belay and pulled up the ropes.  I've found that, over time, this reduces the amount of twisting and kinking experienced.

As for the knot inspection itself, in the gym I occasionally, out of curiosity about whether people actually attend to the details, present my knot for inspection.  In this informal survey, I get the A-OK about half the time, even though I know the people in question only know the figure 8, and mind you, the knot I'm using looks nothing like a figure 8!

Tyler Newcomb wrote:

Figure 8 with an extra loop.

Some also refer to the yosemite finish on a figure 8 as a figure 9. Cleaner and marginally easier to untie.

I'll add photos when I get on my laptop. 

Ah, okay. No need for a photo. I know the Yosemite finish. I'd just never heard it referred to as a figure 9 before. 

Figure 8

This article by Duane Raleigh was enough to convince me

Tie in with a “Trace-8.” Know the bowline for what it is: An instrument of death. I’m going to get into an argument with bowline lovers—bring it on. Almost every year someone dies because their bowline either came untied because the complicated knot was tied wrong, or because the bowline magically untied itself. Read here if you don’t believe me. True, the bowline is much easier to untie after it has held a fall than the Trace-8, but I’ve yet to see anyone who couldn’t actually untie the Trace-8, even after a fall. I’ll take a knot that is hard to untie over one that is easy to untie, and if I was making the rules I’d Ban the Bowline. Strike it from the instructional manuals, and let it never be spoken of again.

from ROCKANDICE.COM  TNB: Ban the Bowline! And Four Other Tips to Keep You Alive

 

The best value for the bowline for me is tying a line around something like a tree.  It allows you to set it to length.

Other than that, I view it as a maritime knot; ease of unloading a wet rope under the weight of a whole boat pulling on it.

 I don't see how a bowline adds much if any value beyond a normal 8.   Easier to untie...really?  Whatever floats your boat...pun intended!

Figure 8 is much less likely to screw up.  How many accidents can you find involving a mis-tied Figure 8?  I can find quite a few involving a mis-tied bowline and very experienced climbers as well..  For example, Lynn Hill in France and John Long in a gym.

climbing friend,

even though you so strong you so mighty, and crush them 5.13, your dainty hands they cannot untie figure of 8 and must utilize the bowline instead?!? for serious? Ho ho ho ha ha!!!!

all your weak forearm are belong to me

Brian wrote: Figure 8 is much less likely to screw up.  How many accidents can you find involving a mis-tied Figure 8?  I can find quite a few involving a mis-tied bowline and very experienced climbers as well..  For example, Lynn Hill in France and John Long in a gym.

i agree with you, but the figure 8 is still not fool proof...

http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201213850/Fall-on-Rock-Incomplete-Tie-In-Knot

curt86iroc wrote:

i agree with you, but the figure 8 is still not fool proof...

http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201213850/Fall-on-Rock-Incomplete-Tie-In-Knot

Anything you do can be done wrong. However how many figure 8s are tied every year compared to how many are screwed up.. compare that to how many bowlines are tied vs screwed up. Even if there was 5 deaths from both knots every year the ratio would put 8s much safer than the bowline due to the number who tie in with each.

curt86iroc wrote:

i agree with you, but the figure 8 is still not fool proof...

http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201213850/Fall-on-Rock-Incomplete-Tie-In-Knot

The AAC accident analysis in the link got it wrong.  They cited a previous error in Lynn Hill failing to tie a Figure 8 correctly.  It was a bowline according to her own words in the autobiography "Climbing Free." I don't have the book anymore so I can't give you an exact page number but it was in the first ten pages of the book.  Page 7 I believe.  Also, I find the accident in Quebec a bit hard to believe.  You can leave the last retrace of the Figure 8 undone and the knot will still hold.  Try it (safely of course).

Brian wrote: Figure 8 is much less likely to screw up.  How many accidents can you find involving a mis-tied Figure 8?  I can find quite a few involving a mis-tied bowline and very experienced climbers as well..  For example, Lynn Hill in France and John Long in a gym.

People continually confuse knots that were never tied with knot that were mistied.

ViperScale . wrote:

Anything you do can be done wrong. However how many figure 8s are tied every year compared to how many are screwed up.. compare that to how many bowlines are tied vs screwed up. Even if there was 5 deaths from both knots every year the ratio would put 8s much safer than the bowline due to the number who tie in with each.

uh, have some data for that?

it doesn't matter, i know you don't. that is a totally fabricated statement.

i would also be willing to bet the type of people who bother to tie a different knot are fairly capable of being able to tie one knot just as well as another. a bowline isn't magically more complicated than the fig 8 just people are too fucking lazy to learn it.

rgold wrote: A figure 9 is not a bowline with Yosemite finish!   It is a figure 8 with yet another turn.  http://www.animatedknots.com/fig9loop/ I don't think there is any good reason to prefer it over a figure 8.

Oh I'm aware, but I hear a figure 8 with yosemite finish referred to as a figure 9 more often than a figure 8 with a Yosemite finish. 

8 with Yosemite finish, or double bowline with backup when I know I'm going to be hangdogging

ViperScale . wrote:

Anything you do can be done wrong. However how many figure 8s are tied every year compared to how many are screwed up.. compare that to how many bowlines are tied vs screwed up. Even if there was 5 deaths from both knots every year the ratio would put 8s much safer than the bowline due to the number who tie in with each.

the point im trying to make is there are many options for tie in knots, but none of them matter if they are not tied properly, dressed, set and inspected.

I couldn't care less what knot people use.  But the bowline hysteria is absurd, and riddled with what is now called fake news.  Shame on Duane Raleigh for promoting such nonsense!  I've never heard of an accident in which it could be verified that a bowline with finishing knot failed.  Not one---please correct me with links.  Every reference I've seen involved a known failure to tie the knot at all (this is the case in the frequently-referenced John Long and Lynne Hill accidents) or could not, after the fact, be distinguished from that possibility.  (The second instance is illustrated by a gym fatality in the UK in which the coroner's report concluded that since there was no figure-eigtht left on the untied rope, the knot must have been a bowline that untied or was "mistied."  Somehow, by far the most likely possibility, that that the rope had been threaded through the tie-in points and then distraction caused no knot at all to be tied, completely escaped the investigators.)

Here are some actual facts.

1. It is impossible to tie the basic bowline incorrectly in a way that leads to a dangerous situation.  There are sixteen ways to execute the "rabbit comes out of the hole goes around the bush, and goes back in the hole" instruction. (Two ways to form the hole) X (two ways to pass the end through the hole) X (two possible bushes to encircle) X ( two ways to encircle the bush).  You either get a standard bowline, or one of four other outcomes:  (a) no knot ever forms, (b) you tie a cowboy bowline, or, somewhat implausibly,  (c) you tie a left or right-handed Eskimo bowline.  The cowboy and Eskimo bowlines  are arguably better than the usual bowline when it comes to resistance to untying and ring-loading.  In no case does something dangerous result, so the idea that incorrectly tying a bowline might lead to a configuration that fails when loaded is without merit.

2. A bowline  in dynamic climbing rope without some kind of finishing knot  is subject to loosening and will not withstand ring loading, so it isn't a knot for any climbing application.  When the word "bowline" is used in a climbing context, it means "bowline with finishing knot" period.  So if your partner claims to be tying a bowlne and you feel obliged to check it, in view of Item 1 what you have to check is that (a) there is some kind of knot there and (b) a finishing knot is in place.

3. Ok, ok, there is a potential problem with the Yosemite finish to the bowline. (The Yosemite finish isn't a finishing knot however.)  The problem occurs if the Yosemite finishing loop is allowed to slip under the bowline nipping loop (the original hole in the rabbit instructions).  It is difficult to make this happen during normal tying, you have to keep everything loose.  I used a Yosemite finish for 30+ years without ever interchanging those loops.  However, the knot that results if the loops are interchanged is not a bowline.  Jim Titt tested it and stopped at 6 kN because that was all he was set up for. (Edit: the old rope he was using broke.  A subsequent test got up to 9.4 kN, and an ordinary bowline failed at 7.9 kN, so the "problematic" Yosemite finish appears to be stronger than an ordinary bowline.) Nonetheless, it is something to understand and avoid, as we know rather little beyond Jim's test about the resulting knot's properties.

The rethreaded bowline (which is a bowline on a bight but tied rethreaded so as to go through the tie-in points) is probably the best general-purpose tie-in knot.  However, if you use double ropes, you have to live with the bulk of four loops through your tie-in points, and everyone I've encountered opts for something else in that case.

Once  again, I'm not trying to convince anyone to change knots, just trying to push back against some of the nonsense that constitutes the vast majority of bowline objections.

rgold wrote: I couldn't care less what knot people use.  But the bowline hysteria is absurd, and riddled with what is now called fake news.  Shame on Duane Raleigh for promoting such nonsense.  I've never heard of an accident in which it could be verified that bowline with finishing knot failed.  Not one---please correct me with links.  Every reference I've seen involved a known failure to tie the knot at all (this is the case in the frequently-referenced John Long and Lynne Hill accidents) or could not, after the fact, be distinguished from that possibility.  (The second instance is illustrated by a gym fatality in the UK in which the coroner's report concluded that since there was no figure-eigtht left on the untied rope, the knot must have been a bowline that untied or was "mistied."  Somehow, by far the most likely possibility, that that the rope had been threaded through the tie-in points and then distraction caused no knot at all to be tied, completely escaped the investigators.)

Here are some actual facts.

1. It is impossible to tie the basic bowline incorrectly in a way that leads to a dangerous situation.  There are eight ways to execute the "rabbit comes out of the hole goes around the bush, and goes back in the hole" instruction. (Two ways to form the hole) X (two ways to pass the end through the hole) X (two possible bushes to encircle).  You either get a standard bowline, or one of three other outcomes:  (a) no knot ever forms, (b) you tie a cowboy bowline, or, somewhat implausibly,  (c) you tie an Eskimo bowline.  The cowboy and Eskimo bowlines  are arguably better than the usual bowline when it comes to resistance to untying and ring-loading.  In no case does something dangerous result.

2. A bowline  in dynamic climbing rope without some kind of finishing knot  is subject to loosening and will not withstand ring loading, so it isn't a knot for any climbing application.  When the word "bowline" is used in a climbing context, it means "bowline with finishing knot" period.  So if your partner claims to be tying a bowlne and you feel obliged to check it, in view of Item 1 what you have to check is that (a) there is some kind of knot there and (b) a finishing knot is in place.

3. Ok, ok, there is a potential problem with the Yosemite finish to the bowline. (The Yosemite finish isn't a finishing knot however.)  The problem occurs if the Yosemite finishing loop is allowed to slip under the bowline nipping loop (the original hole in the rabbit instructions).  It is difficult to make this happen during normal tying, you have to keep everything loose.  I used a Yosemite finish for 30+ years without ever interchanging those loops.  However, the knot that results if the loops are interchanged is not a bowline.  Jim Titt tested it and stopped at 6 kN because that was all he was set up for. Nonetheless, it is something to understand and avoid, as we know almost nothing about the resulting knot's properties.

Once  again, I'm not trying to convince anyone to change knots, just trying to push back against the nonsense that constitutes the vast majority of bowline objections.

Lots of interesting points, thanks. 

I'm curious what finishing knot you are referring to and how you tie it. What's the purpose?