Siebert Research - Must see informaton on the dangers of water knots and retiring gear

wivanoff wrote:I know this: Water knots can loosen pretty easily in my 9/16" supertape. But I want one of his magic rocks to untie the ones welded in my 1" tubular...

This is my experience as well.

J Nieve K wrote:...But the problem here is that people seem to be saying 'water knots are completely safe in all situations' even though the video shows a potential failure, along with some others posting accidents caused by water knots. What Im trying to say is, regardless of how frequently water knots might or might not fail, it CAN definitely happen, so this is good information to keep in mind...

Thank you. My point entirely in posting the links.

J Nieve K wrote: Of course climbing is inherently a dangerous sport which can easily result in fatality. But the problem here is that people seem to be saying 'water knots are completely safe in all situations' even though the video shows a potential failure, along with some others posting accidents caused by water knots. What Im trying to say is, regardless of how frequently water knots might or might not fail, it CAN definitely happen, so this is good information to keep in mind. Same with quickdraws- if more people keep in mind the fact that sticking your finger in the gate while clipping and falling can result in a sliced off finger, more people will be careful not to do it. In this case, if more people see the potential dangers of the water knot failing with - short tails & no safety knots, that many people will make sure their water knots are safer. Its not about how 'simple' it is to untie a knot- its about educating people that it is 'possible' so that more people are aware of it.

Sure different knots are better at different things and have different weaknesses but showing a video where you untie a knot with your hand means nothing. he is using the rock as an extension of a finger and that isn't reality to a water knot failing outside.

I can untie any knot out there doing what he did since all he is doing is untying it with his fingers.

I want to see him go outside to a real crag and show how many times pulling on a sling tied in a water knot will really get caught and untie (not positioning the knot perfectly on the perfect spike to do it).

Any knot can fail, the point is that showing something in a lab setting means virtually nothing unless in can be replicated in the field.

A properly tied know won't fail because if it does, then it wasn't properly tied.

ViperScale wrote: Sure different knots are better at different things and have different weaknesses but showing a video where you untie a knot with your hand means nothing. he is using the rock as an extension of a finger and that isn't reality to a water knot failing outside. I can untie any knot out there doing what he did since all he is doing is untying it with his fingers. I want to see him go outside to a real crag and show how many times pulling on a sling tied in a water knot will really get caught and untie (not positioning the knot perfectly on the perfect spike to do it).

Im not sure if you read the link to an actual water knot accident above, but in that case the water knot failure was not solely due to a sharp rock rubbing against it, but from repeated tensioning on a knot with short tails :)

Stich wrote: This is my experience as well. Thank you. My point entirely in posting the links.

I for one definitely appreciate the information, I've got a lot of friends who dont do much google & forum research for climbing information and use pretty basic gear (webbing with basic water knot rather than a loop sling etc) so Im gonna check their knots whenever I can and pass on the water knot dangers info for sure! They can make informed decisions on whether to stay with webbing and check the knot every single climb + safety knot long tails, or to just get a loop sling :)
Information like these dont really hurt anyone does it? Safety awareness in a sport like this is always good!

I think it can be a bad thing--"Oh water knots are going to fail. i saw the video"

It's simply not true with a properly tied knot, any kind of knot.

Safety police strike again,,,,,why don't you just tell them not to climb ?

J Nieve K wrote: But the problem here is that people seem to be saying 'water knots are completely safe in all situations'

Good lord, I must have missed that, would you mind pointing out who said that and where? We should stop them immediately.

There a load of faulty logic and false equivalences here that ignore that one thing can be more dangerous than another thing.

I can't believe Gary Falk was using a tied tether in this day and age. Especially in 9/16" webbing, we we all knew, in the old days, was subject to losing water knots. But if you do, a double fisherman's knot is orders of magnitude more stable than a water knot. Is the slightly better compactness of the water knot that decisive? Is it just nicer to look at? It isn't as if the water knot is the only game in town. Yes, it is sensationalist to call it dangerous and a death knot. But what makes perfect sense is that there are better alternatives, so why choose an inferior one? Because climbing is dangerous anyway so why not add a bit to the danger by choosing a knot that is more failure-prone than other alternatives?

Nowadays, the real issue is rappel slings. Personally, over the many years I've climbed, I've come across several rappel slings tied with water knots in which one end (it is always the top end) had either worked completely inside the knot or was just about to. I'm not dead because I checked the knots, but either the party before me didn't, or the knot suffered a lot of tail creep during the last set of rappels. Either way, wittingly or unwittingly, they were playing Russian roulette.

What you do with your personal gear is your business. But I think it is criminal to tie rappel slings with a water knot. You are leaving something that can work loose and, in my experience, has come pretty close to doing just that. Sure, the probability of failure is very low, which is why it is silly to say everyone over 40 should be dead. But there is a probability of failure, and the point is that it is much higher than that of a double fisherman's. An unsuspecting or uneducated party, or one stressed by the prevailing conditions, might not check a a bad water knot. If they die, I think that's on the placer of the sling, because they could have used a safer knot that wouldn't have exposed others to a higher risk level.

I can´t work out this fixation with webbing anyway, Euro´s just don´t buy/have/carry miles of the stuff. For rap slings it deteriorates at horrific speed and a piece of old climbing rope or cord is by far the better option. The last piece I bought was for a dog lead and that was 25 years ago!

That's an interesting point, Jim, that probably has more to do with historical climbing culture in the US than any kind of rational choosing process. We used to use webbing for everything; swami belts, quickdraws, runners, hammer keeper cords, you name it. (This is how the older climbers learned that water knots can be unreliable.) The one place webbing really made sense was for aid slings, where it was more secure and easier to carry then the metal-runged stirrups from Europe. And 1/2" webbing tied with a water knot was and may still be the best material for aid piton tie-offs.

I suppose nowadays webbing is cheaper than cord, which makes it attractive for things like rap slings you'll be leaving behind.

Two good points made above: 1) "For rap slings it (webbing) deteriorates at horrific speed and a piece of old climbing rope or cord is by far the better option." Perhaps "today's" climber's are unaware of this fact? [My recollection is that the climbing comunity was first made aware of the deterioration of webbing back in the '60's when someone's aid stirrups broke with body weight.(?] and 2) "there is a probability of failure, [of the water knot] and the point is that it is much higher than that of a double fisherman's." While dbl fisherman's is common on home-made slings made from cord/rope, it is a pretty "ugly" knot when tied in 1" webbing. Safer, YES, but quite unusual to see it tied in webbing.

BITD, I got pretty tired of the water knots in my tied quickdraws, made from 9/16" tubular webbing, loosening and creeping, so all those quickdraws were retied with double fisherman knots, which never loosened or crept. The point being that some folks anyway have been using the double fisherman's knot in webbing for a very long time. Nowadays, the only webbing I knot is rappel webbing, and obviously from what I said I would never use a ring bend for that. But Jim's point is that I really shouldn't be using webbing for that purpose either.

This is beginning to sound like a good reason to replace all soft rap anchors with bolts and chains. Just sayin' it's slidin' down that slope y'all.

rgold wrote: I suppose nowadays webbing is cheaper than cord, which makes it attractive for things like rap slings you'll be leaving behind.

This is the reason I carry webbing on routes where I think I might have to leave a rap sling behind. Other than that though, I agree with Jim in that I don't see the positive utility of using webbing for anything (well, except that I use webbing for the sheath of my homemade ice climbing umbilicals). That said, if I go into a situation full well knowing that I am going to replace a rap anchor, then again I agree with Jim that bringing an old section of rope or cord is better because it will last infinitely longer than webbing.

rgold wrote:BITD, I got pretty tired of the water knots in my tied quickdraws, made from 9/16" tubular webbing, loosening and creeping, so all those quickdraws were retied with double fisherman knots, which never loosened or crept. The point being that some folks anyway have been using the double fisherman's knot in webbing for a very long time. Nowadays, the only webbing I knot is rappel webbing, and obviously from what I said I would never use a ring bend for that. But Jim's point is that I really shouldn't be using webbing for that purpose either.

When did you last tie a QD ? Please , people, a water knot properly tied isn't going to fail under normal use...it just isn't .

This panic BS is just that..."it's gonna fail' No it's not..not properly tied.

I have climbed a long time as well Rich and i think this is panic shit

john strand wrote: When did you last tie a QD ? Please , people, a water knot properly tied isn't going to fail under normal use...it just isn't . This panic BS is just that..."it's gonna fail' No it's not..not properly tied. I have climbed a long time as well Rich and i think this is panic shit

Then we have different opinions, and y'all out there will decide for yourselves, as is always the case.

I haven't tied QD's for many years obviously. That doesn't change the fact that 9/16" webbing has a way of losing water knots. The Gary Falk incident makes this point in the most tragic possible way.

I mentioned finding several examples of water knots in rap slings that were at or near the failure point. You could define this "problem" out of existence by simply saying the knots must not have been "properly tied" to begin with. But in all cases, the knots had one longish tail and one tail in or just about in the knot, and I think it would be very strange to purposely tie a water knot with asymmetrical tail lengths, one of which is very short to begin with. So I think it highly probable, although not certain, that the dangerous short tails I encountered resulted from a "properly tied" knot that crept under cyclic loading, a possibility that has been confirmed by testing.

In any case, this has nothing to do with panic. You have two knots, and one of them behaves better than the other. Why use the worse knot? Because it looks nicer?

By the way, when using 1/2" webbing for aid piton tie-offs (hero loops), the smallness of the loop to begin with made the lower bulk of the water knot desirable. But these hero loops had a way of undoing too.

No one responding needs to be told this:

This is the result of the modern function of having reduced, up-graded, modernized the methods
That people now follow when learning.
WHEN MANY OF US STARTED WE LEARNED THREE THINGS:
check your knots
Check Your Knots
CHECK -ALL-YOUR.KNOTS

It was the name of the game Constant vigilance! Focus on everything .
There were pre sown runners way back, but we learned from best
To always check , and double check everything

Under no circumstances should one lower out on an improvised tether.
Cordellet made of round Cord, used as a P.A.S.!
Never a tied runner (of shoulder-length) - thinner than one inch tubular Or use cord.
Never! . . .( this, gets forgotten? ) again ithink it is a function of short cutting in the learning
Process, We were more in-touch with specialization , it was not 'just' gear. Each piece made up a whole system.
We had Racks for different challenges. Mixed, aid, and free kits -
Learn how to properly tie knots, how to check, before you weight them.
Clove Hitches, , .built into some knots. . .
The rope is your Life line. Stay tied into it use it !

It isn't as if the water knot is the only game in town.
...
Personally, over the many years I've climbed, I've come across several rappel slings tied with water knots in which one end (it is always the top end) had either worked completely inside the knot or was just about to.

Having learned of the issue of water knots "ratcheting" out their tail via low-force, cyclic loading [via Tom Moyer et al.] (such as might occur during abseil), and that it was as the highlighted words of RGold indicate, the *exterior* tail (i.e., join red with blue tape : if the knot looks blue, the blue tail is "exterior"), I worked on some ways to redress that. Of course, the grapevine bend is one sure one.

The water knot can be tied symmetrically, too, making both tails lie *interior*. (But I've not had this version put to a test.) I discovered the symmetric version by thinking to interlock the final tuck of a tail in a (single) fisherman's knot with the other tail (in the first-tied overhand component, as I was then tying the other side). This results in a slightly longer & thinner knot body. It also --like the fish. knot-- positions the tails such that they can be folded back and tucked out beneath the initial turns of the "main line", which should give ample security (and maybEven bump strength, to boot).

IMO, Siebert's recommended knot alternative --and EDK-backed EDK-- is amazingly poor! That's perhaps the best knot for rap ropes and tying under duress (two simple things to do), but the grapevine should've been the obvious alternative. Or even the fig.8, for that matter. (A fellow Austian, Heinz Prohaska (what is it about Austrian's and this snagging of material? --Pit Schubert, too), suggested making the water knot with a twist in its *belly* so to put both tails into the interior position; but that's an awkward knot.

• kN*

knudeNoggin wrote: IMO, Siebert's recommended knot alternative --and EDK-backed EDK-- is amazingly poor!

Indeed. I wouldent be that psyched about taking a big whip on some 11/16" webbing tied with two loose EDKs and one inch of tail remaining. I also agree that the figure eight would be a better solution. While the figure eight looks weird when tied in webbing they work perfectly fine and of course if one is really concerned about the water knot just buy sewn slings. Easy.

Is the EDK a valid knot for webbing in any scenario? It seems like it would be the fastest to tie and easiest to inspect, but if it's not secure...