There's three prominent versions of the Rolling Hitch and Ashley gives these in his bible. I use the "Cow Hitch" version, not sure what number in Ashley it is but I like it better and Ashley reports that it resists twisting better than the other two versions. I tie down most of my ladders using this method and haven't had a problem with it.
Is the 'Rolling Hitch' the best knot for tying/untying a rope under tension?
1) I'd not trust some of the simple,
half-hitch closures
to gripping hitches for many uses/conditions, but would
put in a stopper of some further precaution against
coming untied --YMMV w/various factors, of course.
(There is that sort of
timber-hitch-like "dogging" of the tail.)
2) For quick taking off tension, one can put in a
half-hitch/"
turNip/"nipping turn" (or two), and then fashion the
full
rolling hitch or
Prohgrip/Blakes' with easier working.
E.g., I just was using some beachcombed jetsam commercial
marine ropes** to pull down vines that were climbing trees,
and tried various things : a spaced sequence of
turNips,
or one or double guarding a
rolling hitch or
Prohgrip,
or the "coil-away" part of the latter formed as the first-loaded
"guard" and tail turned around SPart and taken away into
a (mere)
clove hitch for closure.
{** I had some metre-longish 8mm? dia. laid ropes with
overhand loops in one end (no idea what original use was)
for doing the gripping on the vines, joining this to a nicely
think --for hand gripping-- PP & CoEx PP/PE linked rope for
much of the hauling/pulling --and (NB!) I broke the thick
old, aged (UV-degraded, splintering (soft splinters)) CoEx
rope! (Oh, in some other pulling I broke one of the 8mm
laid poly-DAC ropes, amazingly --it was not much force.
("poly-DAC" means "Dacron (polyester)-wrapped PP",
in many cases; sometimes the mixture is otherwise
formed with both fibres seeing exposure --and the PP
is black, to resist UV.)
}
Have some fun with these things in experimenting, where
conditions allow (and they might even allow with the serious
securing of ladders, IF one has an assured back-up). Certainly,
in my impromptu yard work, I could play; if something didn't
work, I'd look to see what needed redressing and try again.
(One can grip a vine's sheath and rip it down a moist-slick
inner skin!)
.:. IN SHORT, I don't see it in knotting literature, but it
makes sense and good effect, often, to **guard** some
known friction hitch with a preliminary, first-loaded gripping
structure of a
turNip (maybe 2, 3) or fuller gripping
structure (say, the
"Gripper hitch" --a sort of
clove
& H-H-- presented here as a new knot; or the differently
dressed double turns of some "
rolling hitch" version,
with the tail of this taken into the full, completing knot.
This can result in a more secure, stable hitch; and it can
buy one time to make do the tying.
--dl*
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