"Keep It Simple, Stupid" has been a goal when assembling my camping kit for as long as I can remember. Lately, I've been trying to simplify and lighten my suspension system while keeping it reliable, quick and easy to set up with numb fingers on a dark and stormy night, equally easy to take down and stow away, and flexible enough to allow straightforward repairs or replacements in the field if a part becomes damaged or lost. Ideally, I've wanted field repairs or replacements to affect only the damaged or lost part and not require restructuring other parts of the suspension, leaving me with an unfamiliar suspension for the remainder of the trip.
Progress has been uneven, and the most knotty problem has been the knot itself. My normal weight is a scant 155 lbs. and Lyme has brought me down to 125 lbs. I therefore hang on a single length of 8-strand AmSteel (7/64" diameter.) The knot described here is for tying off an adjustment to hang height. My goals were:
1. Avoid redundant lengths of hang-line, thereby minimizing weight and/or maximizing potential tree spacing. The knot shown here achieves that to my satisfaction.
2. Minimize the cost and carry-weight of hardware. The arrangement shown here reduces hardware to two descender rings incorporated into the hammock ends.
3. Adjust and tie off at the hammock, while facing the hammock. This arrangement achieves that.
4. Minimize the need to thread the bitter end of the hang rope through hardware or parts of the knot. This arrangement still requires passing the rope through descender rings but not the knot.
4. Minimize the need to see what you're tying. Perhaps with more practice, but not yet.
5. Untie and disassemble everything quickly and easily. This goal, at least, is nailed down.
To tie the knot:
1. Secure one end of the suspension line to a tree (the subject of a later post.)
2. Take two turns around the ring in the end of the hammock.
This is the only time the bitter-end of the line must be handled, and I would sorely like an alternative, but so far no flashes of inspiration. Even at my absurdly light weight, a single turn won't do. Heavier hangers will probably need more than two turns.
3. Adjust the height by pulling on the tail end, then tie off with a single slippery half-hitch.
At this point, I go to the other end and do the same, and make whatever adjustments seem desirable for height and/or centering. It will not yet carry hang-weight, however.
4. One end at a time,
First, reduce the size of the slippery half-hitch loop to about the size of a dime by pulling on the tail-end. Check that the half-hitch itself is still tight.
Then, form a bight in the tail-end and insert it through the dime-size half-hitch loop. This bight functions like a toggle, preventing the single slippery half-hitch from coming undone. Pull the dime-size loop tight against the bight. Done.
At a casual glance, the completed knot looks somewhat like the bow-tie in shoestrings. In structure and function, it is nothing of the sort.
After a lengthy hang, the knot is very, very tight. Now the slipperiness of AmSteel works to my advantage. A firm pull on the tail end first pulls out the "toggle" bight and then the slippery half-hitch loop and voila, all is undone, even with wet, cold, numb fingers.
Comment; Using a bight as a toggle was not my first impulse. I first tried a conventional wooden toggle. I found that my nice, smooth, hardwood toggles worked just fine. But I also realized that a toggle-of-opportunity from the forest floor would not slip out so nice and easily after a night's hang, and if I lost one of my nice smooth ones I'd be re-inventing the suspension in the field. The "Be Prepared" from six decades ago suggested that I solve the problem from the prone position on the living-room sofa.
A final note: Since a significant part of the knot is tied with a bight in the tail end, extraneous parts of the line tend to clutter the "scene." My first reaction to this phenomenon was "This will never do on a dark and stormy night!" Before long, however, as the knot became more familiar, I became more comfortable with it. It ain't no bowline tied behind your back but it ain't no Turk's Head neither. And the bit of focus required when tying it is more than paid back by the simplicity of untying it after hanging on it all night. YMMV.
I would greatly appreciate comments or suggestions for improving this knot, or using some, specific, other knot.
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Originally Posted by sir_n0thing
BTW, I drill into the ends of my toggles and super-glue in a short lanyard of thin accessory cord which I then tie or sew to something nearby. But I still want a backup. I'm the kind who wears both belt and suspenders.
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