[Bob Pingel]

The knot story is in the Feb 2007 issue (page 82 by David Schmidt) . The testing was done at New England Ropes.

They tested 1/2" double braid nylon, 1/2" Sta-Set, and 1/2" Endura Braid with a bowline, a clove hitch backed with halfhitches, a round turn and halfhitches, a figure 8 follow though, a double fisherman's knot, and an eye splice. No details were given on the eye splice, but I assume it was to NE spec.

As expected, knots in the Endura Braid were pretty bad, they only retained about 30-40% of the strength of the rope . The tensile was tested at 19300#, I believe published is 19000#. The eyesplice broke at 20594#.

The eyesplices in the other ropes were about 78% and 88% efficient at the measured breaking strength -- the measured breaking strengths were about 20% higher than published numbers. The knots were about 50-60% efficient.

It would be interesting to see a comparison between Endura Braid and Endura12 of the equivalent size. I'd assume the cover helps some -- by adding friction.

I would have expected the knots and eyesplices in the nylon and dacron to fair a bit better. The knots were only about 25% better than the same ones in Endura Braid. I would have expected the eyesplices to be closer to 100% efficient.

Bob