CHAPTER II.
SIMPLE AND USEFUL KNOTS.
Fig. 1.—Overhand Knot.
Fig. 2.—Fourfold Overhand Knot, Loose and Taut.
The simplest knot that is made is the overhand knot (Fig. 1). It is very useful, and forms a part of many other knots. To make it, the standing part of the rope—that is, the main part in opposition to the end—is held in the left hand, and the end of the rope is passed back over it (whence its name) and put through the loop thus formed. It is used at the end of a rope to prevent the strands unlaying, and sometimes in the middle of a rope as a stopper knot. If the end of the rope is passed through the “bight” or loop two, three, or more times before hauling it taut, the double, treble, or fourfold knot, A (Fig. 2), is obtained. This is a larger knot than Fig. 1, and is often used on the thongs of whips, being then termed a blood knot. B (Fig. 2) shows the knot hauled taut. Fig. 1 also goes by the name of the Staffordshire knot, as it forms the insignia of the county. A Flemish or figure-of-eight knot is shown by Fig. 3. To make it, pass the end of the rope back, over, and round the standing part, and up through the first bight. The Flemish knot is used for much the same purposes as the preceding knots, but is rather more ornamental.
Fig. 3.—Figure-of-eight Knot.
The bight of a rope is the loop formed when a rope is bent back on itself, in contradistinction to the ends.