Water knots

inspecting soft gear (even "hard" gear) of unknown origin before rapping off is an absolutely fundamental skill that EVERY climber who is serious about safety needs to learn

never mind water knots ... you need to inspect for wear or rodent marks ...

;)

Had several problems with water knots working loose . I always use single or double fishermans.

Bullshit. Water Knot is the only knot your supposed to use for webbing from everything I've read and been taught by guides. it's the smoothest knot that keeps webbing neat and not kinked all to shit. With long tails and a stopper knot with each tail, the webbing will break long before the knot slips... My .02. Regardless of what else is said, I'll use it till I stop climbing, which hopefully won't be because of a failed water knot, lmao...

johnnyrig wrote: BITD, quarter inch bolts were considered sufficient, as were swamis, bowlines, and ropes half of today's length.

I know about that stuff, because I used all of it for years.

johnnyrig wrote: So, I know you're pushing for a safer world and all, but how far is it necessary to go? At what point do people need to step up and take personal responsibility for inspecting the gear they use? After all, if the situation is critical, what are they doing using a sling of unknown origin anyway?

You don't understood what I've been saying. Actually, I'm not pushing for a safer (climbing) world. In fact, most of the time I find myself arguing for a more dangerous climbing world, since I keep trying to keep folks from bolting trad climbs, and their primary argument is based on their perception of safety. I fully believe in personal responsibility and hate it when someone with a Hilti decides to make something fit their standards of safety, when risk and the skills involved in confronting it are at the very heart of trad climbing.

But I believe in embracing the risks inherent in the activity, the ones that are, essentially, determined by nature. When climbers have a choice of what they will do (without, of course, carving up the terrain as one of the options), then I think that choosing a dangerous option rather than a safe option is wrongheaded, particularly when the choice imposes risks on others. Yes, everyone should be responsible for their own damn safety and ought to be inspecting every aspect of every in-situ rap. But I don't see that as freeing climbers to install potential booby-traps when it is just as easy not to.

Seriously, isn't this a no-brainer? One knot has been proven, in tests and in the field, to come undone under cyclic loading. Another knot, just as easy to tie, is stronger (which doesn't really matter) and completely stable (which is the point here). Why on earth would you choose the unstable option? So you could subject people you don't even know to some kind of personal responsibility test with potentially fatal consequences if they aren't up to it? And if your anchor kills someone, you say what? I knew this could happen, but they should have inspected this trap more carefully?

That's not the kind of person I want to be. YMMV.

What a perfectly eloquent point rgold. Even away from the context of knots, that basically sums up "climbing safety" to me.

And of course water knots creep. That's a good thing in some situations. Keep one on your rack and use it as a normal sling but when you need to leave it somewhere, it is possible to untie.

They aren't permanent knots.

When your partner gets seriously hurt or dies, the impact on all is huge. And who's fault it is can blur.

For the water knot to 'kill' that random experienced climber, a large number of care-free individuals must have rapped through. I said hundreds before but it may be just scores before the tails become unexceptable to most. If just one of them had learned to check before weighting, the random experienced guy would have been ok. And remember the perlon-eating rodents that BB mentioned. They sort of wipe the slate clean.

Just remember kids, poor knots and binge drinking can lead to unplanned pregnancies.

if im bailing i tend not to leave metal gear behind if possible ... i usually just rap off a webbing/cord tied off in a redundant way ...

ice climbers rap off webbing/cord all the time with ablakovs ... many dont leave metal gear behind as itll litter the crag when the ice melts ... or would they be responsible if someone used their setup and failed to inspect it properly

inspecting what you rap off is an absolutely fundamental skill, which in beginner classes is one thats always taught (dont rap off slings which arent your own)

if one doesnt have the common sense not to trust unknown softgoods, then theres not much one can do ....

the rodents running around are V. HUNGRY!!!

;)

So what actual advantages are there of the water knot. Because from where I am sitting there doesn't seem to be much.

The water knot doesn't even achieve the most important aspect of a knot.

patto wrote:So what actual advantages are there of the water knot. Because from where I am sitting there doesn't seem to be much.

It is symmetrical and intuitive. So it offers quick ease of inspection by almost anyone - even folks quite unfamiliar with knots in general.

I suspect that most experienced folks forget about this advantage.

"Constance Vigilance" would make a good moniker for the latest elenor profile.

Well a huge advantage is the ease of inspection and that it is easy to tie and untie. IMHO this is the big advantage of non sewn runners.

Especially true in the dark, when exhsusted and/or when wearing gloves or mitss in cold conditions.

It is excellent for NYLON slings, with the caveat that it is not ideal with dyneema (will overtighten/slip when loaded and weakens as it tends to cut itself--check DMM website).

Again, it is quick to tie and next to impossible to tie incorrectly if one leaves good tails (which is true of ANY knot).

But I will say most folks are using sewn runners and perlon/cordellettes, so it is not as common as it was years ago.

One good use of webbing with a water knot is as a gear sling or two ... 1" nylon aint too uncomfortable

And when u need to bail off trees, you can untie and retie it easily ... And cut it

Cheaper than leaving dyneema slings behind

In an emergency you can escape a belay or ascent a rope with it too

;)

Buff Johnson wrote:Just remember kids, poor knots and binge drinking can lead to unplanned pregnancies.

Not if its a balloon knot.

Yea... Water Knots are really weak, lmao...

user.xmission.com/~tmoyer/t…

Definitely a cause for concern...

We've used them for 30-years without one becoming undone. If there was ever any doubt at a rap station, we'd add another sling to the ones holding rap rings etc. Often in Eldorado, you'll see rap anchors with 4-5 slings in various stages of decay, so bring some extra, and the piece of mind is worth the 15-cents a foot.

I'd also like to add that as a teenager, I took numerous rafting trips, and we'd use the knot to tie all of the dunnage in. Didn't have one come undone on the river either...

Thank you Willian Kramer for starting this thread, and also rgold for bringing up the importance of inspecting existing sling anchors you plan to use, and the idea of using double fisherman knots on webbing you leave behind for permanent rappel anchors. This is all really important information for new and less experienced climbers. I've seen too many climbers implicitly trust and use webbing, sling, or static rope anchors without checking to see if the knot(s) are tied correctly, if the tails are long enough, and if the material is in good shape. Let alone inspecting whether the tree or rock it is tied around is in good shape or safe to use too.

The link that user divnamite posted shows that cyclic loading and unloading of the knot causes it to come undone. Tom Moyer also shows that using overhand knots on the tails of the water knot resolves this problem. I will say though that I've seen these overhand safety knots come undone on one local climb. It was unusually thick webbing that was used, so the lack of flexibility in the material probably played a part in it. First time I went up the climb in the season the overhand safety knots on the tails were fine although the stiff webbing really didn't allow it to cinch down nicely. The next time up it a month or two later, the overhand safety knots on the tails had come undone.

That being said, one of the reasons for me posting here was that I was practicing today how to make proper double fisherman knots on webbing for the scenario of having to leave behind a permanent rappel anchor or reinforcing an existing one. As this knot doesn't look quite the same as on rope. I'm quite used to tying it on cord for prusik and accessory cords and what it should look like.

What I found is that you can't make a double or triple fisherman incorrectly on webbing due to the flat nature of the material. If you accidentally do not make the cross in the webbing in the first wrap and then wrap behind it before sending the tail underneath and through all the wraps, it still makes a proper fisherman knot. Where as if you do this with round cord or rope, you don't end up with a fisherman because the two or three wraps of rope want to sit side by side with each other, not slide over the top of each other like webbing.

I tied two double and then triple fishermans in webbing side by side as if making stopper knots at the end of rope(s) for rappelling, one the wrong way without the cross in the wrap, and the other the correct way with the cross in the wrap and they both look exactly the same when dressed and tightened. The only thing the seemed possible to do incorrectly was get the orientation of the two double fisherman in relation to each other on opposite sides when making a loop for anchor, or a sling. Such that one knot would have the one strand over another strand next to the side of the other knot that is two parallel wrapped strands. Although I've never seen any pull data or information to suggest that this could or would be dangerous. I just know it's not the way to tie these knot when making a loop of cord.

A direct by product of this experimentation made me also realize that when you have made a double or triple fisherman incorrectly with round cord or rope where you did not make the cross in the rope before making additional wraps, you can fix it easily without untying and re-tying it by pulling one of the wraps over the other, or the in the triple fisherman case, two of the wraps.

Can anyone verify that this is correct?

bearbreeder wrote: never mind water knots ... you need to inspect for wear or rodent marks ... ;)

You forgot about ants nest too, formic acid secreted from their mandibles :-)

Rockbanned wrote:Bullshit. Water Knot is the only knot your supposed to use for webbing from everything I've read and been taught by guides. it's the smoothest knot that keeps webbing neat and not kinked all to shit. With long tails and a stopper knot with each tail...

What knot would that be? :p

Water knots are fine, as long as you treat them as they are rather than assuming they will function just like a triple fisherman's.