www.adrianshanahan.com

Howdy folks,

So I thought I would do a little how to of some of the knots I reckon are good to have in your “skills tool box” as a white water kayaker. I know some people will say ah but sure I know all I need to at this stage but in my experience I have seen kayakers who I’m surprised managed to tie their shoe laces/board shorts yet alone set up any sort of rope system. I don’t just mean those who are new to kayaking but some folks who are very solid boaters paddling some of the pushier rivers around.

I have picked three simple knots which have loads of uses, for this little instalment I’m not going to go into scenarios but just stick with the straight forward how to tie them.

For me there are 3 principles of the knot.

• Easy to tie

• Easy to untie

• Fit for the purpose you intend

So first up the figure of eight.

While the simple figure of eight knot does not have a huge amount of use on its own it is the foundation for the “double figure of eight” or a “figure of eight on the bite” to be more correct.

So firstly a “bite” is just a loop of rope which looks like this:

So from now on if you are ever asked to tie anything on “the bite” you know what to do, its not as if it’s rocket science. Now that we can do a figure of eight and now we know what a bite is we just have to put them together a little something like this.

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As you can tell for the above sequence this can really use full for clipping into all sorts of things, you will also see in the last shot I put in a little “stopper knot” just to tidy up the excess rope. If your bite is in the centre of your rope this stopper knot is not needed.

I’m sure most people have hear of the phrase a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and in the case or ropes this is no different. In a rope rig or set up the knot is always going to be the week point, as a general rule of thumb a knot will half the effective strength of your rope at the point where is is tied. There has recently been a research article released by Dino Heald of Plas Y Brenin which goes into the effects of  knots on polypropylene rope which makes for worth while reading.

The finial knot I will introduce to you is the “Bowline” which is found more commonly in rock climbing and sailing but also has its uses for us in a white water environment. One of the things I really like about using a bowline over a double figure of eight is that no matter how hard you haul or pull on it during a situation it is always relatively easy to untie, the same can’t be said about the figure of eight.

I like to use a Bowline when I have to anchor/ haul off a big object like a large tree trunk or bolder that I can’t get my sling to fit around and using a bowline this way is also light on using up gear. A word of warning of you do want to use a boline as part of your system, it is possible to tie a bowline so that it looks almost right but as soon as a load is applied it will open up resulting in bad times all round. So if you intend on using it practice practice practice.

Having a good working knowledge & understanding of rope work is as important as knowing how to boof when you start pushing the boundaries of your kayaking. I would recommend that you practice all your rope skills on a regular basis so that should you ever have to use them in anger they will be sharp and reliable.

As always if you are going to be working with ropes you should always have a suitable river knife on your person and the ability to use it single handed if needs be.

I would say that reading about all this kinda stuff on my blog or elsewhere online is good to get familiar it is not a replacement for professional training from an experienced and qualified instructor.

If you have any questions just fire away.

Adrian