Webbing to webbing knots

Okay had a conversation with a guy about tying webbing together to make a longer single piece of webbing to extend the master point over a cliff edge. I was taught to use a water knot with a foot tail on each side with a double fishermans on each side of the water knot. Which I've used. The guy sated using a triple fishermans to join the webbing and do a double fishermans as back ups on each side with the tails never have tried that method but I do tie my cordelette with a triple fishermans so I was just wondering your thoughts

I prefer the water knot as it is specifically meant to be used with webbing.
Long Tails + Proper Dressing = Happy Climber

IMHO that is absurd. Triple fishermans with a double fisherman backup on each side? I call that overkill, but YMMV.

Just use a water knot with a few inches of tail and it will be fine.

Water knot is fine.
Could probably use a double EDK as well but I use water knots with long tails

Thanks guys yeah I feel more comfortable with the water knot with a big tail, like I said that's how I was taught, but it was brought up and I'm always open to suggestions and was wondering if anyone else ties the triple fishermans. Thanks for the input guys!

Double/triple fisherman's is generally used for cord, water knots for webbing. I guess you could tie a fisherman's with webbing, but it would look weird and might be hard to untie if loaded.

Long tails don't add security and pretty much just get in the way. Four fingers of tail seems to be the standard.

Wow foot long tails? That's seems crazy to me. I typically do 2 inches or so. Is that in the realm of what others do? I've been doing it this way for years and never gotten done climbing on an anchor and the knot was even close to coming undone...

Jake wander wrote:Wow foot long tails? That's seems crazy to me. I typically do 2 inches or so. Is that in the realm of what others do? I've been doing it this way for years and never gotten done climbing on an anchor and the knot was even close to coming undone...

4-6" is what I usually use.

If you want , you can leave longer tails and secure them with an overhand knot but probably not necessary

I prefer a water knot on each piece of webbing, rather than backing up with a fisherman's knot there are two water knots that should each hold on their own. I also leave about 4 inches of tail on each water knot.

Tom Moyer's Water Knot Testing is worth a read:

user.xmission.com/~tmoyer/t…

I personally don't think that tails longer than three inches or backup knots on the tails are overkill based on this article. If you are going to make double fisherman backup knots, you might as well just use double fisherman knots with three inch tails to join the webbing and call it a day. Although I'd guess it's a bit more difficult to pull apart afterwards and certainly more difficult to visually inspect that it has been tied correctly on the webbing.

The article above states, and user Rgold here on MP has stated before, that for rappel anchors left behind, it's better to use double fisherman knots as they will never creep and come undone like a water knot under repeated cyclic load. For existing webbing anchors with water knots, check the knot closely and thoroughly to be sure there is long enough tails sticking out of the knot. Otherwise re-tie the knot yourself. Which for rappel anchors can certainly happen over time.

The question you will have to ask yourself is: If you use a water knot with three inch tails on your top rope anchor, will it be cyclically loaded from falls and the climber calling take more than the approximately 806 times it took Tom Moyer's for the tail pull in his tests? For myself I'd prefer a bit of overkill in the safety of the setup and use longer tails or backup knots on the tails.

One other thing to note, I have seen a one inch wide webbing rappel anchor at the top of a climb in my local area tied with a water knot that is of an unusually thick and stiff material that had backup overhands on the tails at the beginning of the climbing season. Due to the thickness and stiffness of the webbing, the backup overhands are difficult to tighten such that the they were unraveled the second time I went up the climb later in the season. Moral of the story, don't implicitly trust someone else's rappel anchor. Inspect all of the material and the knot. Re-tie the knot if necessary and/or replace the webbing if it is in poor shape.

For top roping, unless your buddies know enough to double check your work, or just trust your experience, then it is all on you to setup the top rope anchor safely.

There is a trade-off to long tails - they can be confused with the main strand/loop.

Bryan Ferguson wrote:Four fingers of tail seems to be the standard.

To clarify, four finger is one's hand width or about 3 inches.

finger = inch
hand = 4 inches
foot = 12 inches/fingers, 3 hands

That's the way the Romans did it and the hand is still used to measure horses world wide.

Back in the day, when people made made there own slings I used water knots. They are great on roughed up webbing, but on new shiny tubular nylon they kept coming loose. I ended up using tape to sick the ends down. Others put a stitch right through the centre of the knot!

With a top rope the knot will be out of sight and cyclicly loaded. I'd use long, long, tails - or a different knot. Or a length of old rope.

Mike wrote:IMHO that is absurd. Triple fishermans with a double fisherman backup on each side? I call that overkill, but YMMV. Just use a water knot with a few inches of tail and it will be fine.

Ditto, way overkill. BITD we tied our runners (1 inch tubular webbing) with double fishermans. Totally secure but forget about ever untying them. Now I just go with the water knot with 3" tails. It sounds like that's the most common.

CRAG-list-KILLA wrote: Okay had a conversation with a guy about tying webbing together to make a longer single piece of webbing to extend the master point over a cliff edge. I was taught to use a water knot with a foot tail on each side with a double fishermans on each side of the water knot. Which I've used. The guy sated using a triple fishermans to join the webbing and do a double fishermans as back ups on each side with the tails never have tried that method but I do tie my cordelette with a triple fishermans so I was just wondering your thoughts

I believe the "double fisherman's" backup on each side you are talking about is a 'double overhand', or if you want to be really precise, a 'strangle knot'. This is half of a double fisherman's knot, but also not a 'single fisherman's', or a fisherman's knot of any sort (despite what you may have been incorrectly told by climbing gym staff or other climbers). The single and double fisherman's knots are both bends used to join two ropes (or rope ends). Using the correct names for knots makes things clearer and safer for everyone.

Fisherman's knot:

Double Fisherman's knot:

Double overhand knot:

You just necromanced a year and a half old thread to argue semantics about knots? C'mon dude...

This thread came up in a search, and I noticed a pretty big mistake in the initial post that no one had pointed out, so I did. In other words, adding something important and relevant for anyone reading the thread. Especially considering this is a thread about knots. Which is more than I can say about the two comments above, which add nothing of value to anyone..

Using the correct names for knots is more than just semantics in my opinion, because the alternative leads to confusion at best, and potentially dangerous misunderstandings at worst.