What Knot is This?
 

Hello folks,

Here's a question that ought to be simple for you with great knowledge of such things, but has baffled my research so far:

I was running some new Sta-Set X halyards on my boat and, seeking to secure them until I have time to properly splice them, I attempted to tie a Buntline Hitch. However, it had been a while since I tied the knot and my first execution was, shall we say, different, resulting in the knot shown below. I did recognize my mistake and retied the knots, but it has made me wonder what in the heck I tied the first time and whether or not its useful for anything. So, here it is, if any of you can help shed some light on what it might be I'd appreciate it. I have a feeling its simply an inversion of something, but I can't exactly figure out what.

As a note: the entire hitch constricts, much like a buntline hitch or rolling hitch, such that tension on the standing end will slide the bight tighter.




*** Working on fixing the broken images, give me 5 min **

Thanks very much for your help - I'm quite curious as to whether there is any use for this knot and what it is called.

Buehler?

So... as best as I can tell, the "hitch" has some sort of a half-hitch-ish nature to it, which is tied around the standing part to form a sliding bight. But the half-hitch-ish part is tied such that the bitter end is pinched when the bight compresses, similarly to how the clove hitch of a buntline hitch is pinched and further captured.

I've looked at some other knots and still can't figure out exactly what this is, nor do I have any more information than simple intuition as to what this knot might be useful for. It seems to be of the type of knot that will jam under high load but is very compact, yet I am not sure its in the same "security" range as a buntline hitch or, for that matter, even a bowline.

Useless?

Technical difficulties
 

Hi,
Still no image here.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

Strange
 

Thanks for letting me know! I thought I fixed it -- I could see them so I didn't know others couldn't.

Try refreshing this post now (it took a refresh to get the images). I pulled this up on another computer and they show up there ... but here are direct links if it still does not work:

http://gallery.studiodc.org/d/16827-2/IMG_0754_sm.jpg
http://gallery.studiodc.org/d/16830-2/IMG_0756_sm.jpg

I'm still curious as to what this might be, useless or not. :)

By the way, Brion, I ordered your splicing wand to try some Sta-Set X spliced for my halyards. I'm quite excited - none of the riggers in my area will touch the stuff for splicing so if I can get decent at it I might be able to make a buck or two on the side. In that event your gear and book will easily have paid for itself - over and above the awesome information that I learned for my own boat. Thanks for including that miraculous splice.

I got a "security violation" instead of a picture when I clicked the link.

Blast. Ok, try it now. My sincere apologies... geez. Its been working for me 100% of the time (since literally 5 min after the original post). No idea why its so hard getting my photo hosting site to respect links offsite. I think I've finally made it work now.

I'm really sorry about the image problems...

Ahh, good pic. It's just a thumbknot (overhand knot) with the standing part run through. I don't know how secure but I've made that mistake and it jammed down to something that could only be cut, not untied.

There's a reason why some knots have names and other tied thinggies have merely deprecations.

G'luck

Thanks! Good to know I should be on the lookout for NOT tying this beastie, ever. :)