Quote Originally Posted by iceman857 View Post
What this thread has made me think of is one unmet need I have, which is to (a) know how to tie the most useful knots in hammocking, and (b) what the best applications of those knots are. Phantom Grappler is always teaching me knots at pretty much every hang I see him at, but I suppose I haven't bothered practicing them enough to know how to tie them, likely because I don't know all the uses of the knots in hammocking. Someone should do a video series on YouTube for this.
The main knots I know and use are:

  • Truckers hitch for the tarp ridgline.
  • Slipknot is useful as a stopper knot. I usually will tie this to finish the truckers hitch.
  • Prusik knots if you want to use a CRL. I hate prusiks because they tend to jam up and need to be retied, but they are handy for adjusting your tarp along the ridgeline. I still have them on my DW CRL that I still have rigged up, but that's on a loaner tarp and I've been lazy about swapping it out to split ridgelines.
  • Figure eight, double overhand loop or bowline knot for one end of the tarp guyline. The guyline is larksheaded onto the tarp tieout. Easy to switch out if the line gets damaged or you want to swap for longer/shorter guylines. You can also use this if you go with split ridgelines for your tarp to attach the ridgelines to the ridgeline d-rings. These loops won't tighten when under load.
  • Marlin spike hitch for guylines to stakes. I used to use a tautline hitch since it was adjustable but with low stretch silpoly or no stretch dyneema tarps you don't really need to adjust it once you set your guylines. If you do, just pull up the stake, pull it for more tension, and reset the stake. If you use whoopies, the msh is really handy as well for your hammock. Like Shug says: hang your sling on the knot, not the toggle.
  • Clove hitch (the msh works too) for the stick/toggle when using a PCT hang for hanging the food bag. Now that I think about it, I just use the msh for the toggle.

The only knot that I really have to tie when I'm out is the marlin spike hitch. I swapped out the the truckers hitch with DW stingerz clipped on to my tarp ridgeline d-rings. Everything else is already tied and attached.