sheepshank

[benz]

Why is a Sheepshank knot so called? Does it resemble the shank of a sheep, or is it used in the shanking of sheep? And if the latter, what does it mean to shank a sheep and how does this knot aid in it? Ashley is silent on this.
Thanks in advance.
Ben

[Ian McColgin]

The sheepshank has not use in animal husbandry. It may be thought to bear a rather fanciful resemblence to the shank cut of meat from a sheep. It is surely a simple coincidence that to the older scots "sheepshank" meant something of little or no importance.

I am happy to claim credit for using the sheepshank daily during the summer of 1966 to keep some permanent dock lines always secure at the piling and at the dock from hanging in the polluted water when we took our charter parties out to annoy the blues. So far as I know, I'm alone in using the knot routinely.

[Don Z.]

Au contraire Ian. Alas, you are not the only one to use it routinely.

I use it to great effect on a regular basis in adjusting lines that hold camouflage poncho liners and mosquito netting. Cutting the 550 cord across the tent would have made it the wrong length for other uses. A sheepshank took up the slack, while preserving the line.

[Ian McColgin]

Excellent. We must form an association of folk who actually use the sheepshank.

[JohnV]

The Oxford English Dictionary has the first reference to a sheepshank knot in 1627, used to shorten the fall of a tackle. It was also called a dogshank. An animal's shank has two bones plus a long tendon--three long parts.
The knot had another use that a lot of people don't know about. Here, shortening the rope was incidental. You know that the knot holds under tension; shake it a few times and it falls apart. But when it's under tension, you can cut any one of the three component lengths of rope and the knot will still hold--as long as it's under tension.
So, someone working on a high place and needing a safety line--a church steeple, say, or someone who had to lower himself off a cliff, or ford a river, and who didn't have enough rope to double it over a high block/limb/beam/whatever, could tie off the rope at the top and still recover all but a couple feet. He would make a sheepshank just below where the top end was fixed, cut any one of the three strands, lower himself when the work was done and shake the knot loose from below.
Then maybe go home and have a nice leg of mutton.
John V.

[Ian McColgin]

Many of us admire the courage of those who try the cut sheepshank. Admire but not emulate. It might be safe with natural fibre ropes, which are not generally used in steeplejacking, mountaineering, arborculture, or any of the other dangling occupations, and it's a bit slippery to trust under load. And it may come out hard. I experimented with shaking one out that I'd draped over rock as one might a natural belay, and while I couldn't shake it out as I wanted, I also just did not feel up to trusting it. But it's a fun thought.

One can also use it as the loops for a sort of doubled up trucker's hitch.

G'luck

[JohnV]

You're right, Ian, but I was describing an archaic use of the knot that fell out of favor before synthetics were invented. Pardon the pun.
And before anybody with a Visa card could buy twice as much rope as he needed.
It's scary to think about the occupational risks that people used to take for granted not long ago. Check this out, for instance:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...York-City.html
Scroll down to the Brooklyn Bridge painters.
John V

[Dan Lehman]

Originally Posted by JohnV

You know that the knot holds under tension; shake it a few times and it falls apart.

No, I don't know this --esp. not in modern ropes, and in various constructions!

But when it's under tension, you can cut any one of the three component lengths of rope and the knot will still hold--as long as it's under tension.

Bullsheep! There is a particular one that you might cut (or leave slack),
but two that will immediately fail (the knot won't begin to hold).

I've never understood why this knot was ever used,
why the rope wasn't shortened by obvious measures at one end
or the other ; or, why the knotted parts weren't securely set as a
sort of bowline (something the sometimes presented marlinespike
sheepshank could capsize into).

Another possible use for it --perhaps with more than the minimal
trio of central parts-- is to make a *padded* strap for putting over
the shoulder, easier on the body.

--dl*
====

[benz]

Hi Dan,

Sometimes a line that needs shortening is not accessible at the ends, or would be imprudent to untie (I used a sheepshank in this scenario just the other day, when needing to shorten a towing dinghy painter underway. If I had untied the end to shorten, it may have been jerked from my weak fingers, but if I lost my grip on the sheepshank while tying it, the ends were still secured). Sometimes both ends of a line are spliced, making it inconvenient to shorten at the ends, and the sheepshank very conveniently and quickly shortens the bight. As for cutting one leg, I can only say I would recommend against it.
Another use I learned for a sheepshank just recently (from a girl scout) is in tying hair ribbons. Who knew?

[Joe Henderson]

Dear All,

The most romantic utilisation of a sheepshank that I have heard ( and I am not sure that it is true, It may just have been a wind-up of the impressionable apprentice ) was it's use as a free-fall device during the hanging of condemned men in the days of sail in the Royal Navy.

The procedure, that I was told, was as follows.

Pass a whip through a block on the rail then up and through a block at the port yard arm, then down to the deck.
Make a hangman's noose in the end.
Make a sheepshank close up to the noose, but do not pass the upper hitch, instead substitute a weak seizing.
Pass the noose over the hangee's head and snug up under an ear.
Read the sentence.
Lay on about twelve men to the tail and run away down the deck with it.

This hoists the man smartly to the yard arm- the weak seizing comes up against the top block and breaks and drops the man about six feet, thereby neatly snapping his neck etc.

All this was done at the jump so as to get it all over and done with in a few minutes.

The man was lowered to the deck and I do not know how the body was dealt with.

No mucking about with warnings and leniency in those days!

I suppose it was the only way to control the 600 or so men on board, after all, when a ship had to carry marine soldiers just to protect the officers from the men drastic measures were called for.

Regards,

Joe Henderson.