The Knot Handbook

Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER BAD KNOTS BOOK
Review: As I commented in my review of an even worse knots book (viz., _Great Knots..._ by D. Lewis), "In short, this book seems to have been hastily prepared by an uniformed author, without regard for standards of care in advice or courtesy in acknowledging sources (there are no acknowledgements, and no info re author, such as credentials)." (Nevertheless, both books' publishers give some sort of (...) disclaimer to the effect that "every effort has been made to ensure that the book is accurate"--...) While not quite so error-laden as the Lewis book, this one similarly contains no real advice on the use of knots, and some of its photographs are of such fuzzy rope/twine that one can't readily discern the parts of a knot!

Here is a sample of the book's numerous errors:
p30, Fireman's Coil: shows a supposed means to tying off a coil that won't hold; p34 West Co. Whipping: shows the whipping running off the end of the rope, like a night cap;
p49 Slipped Fig.8 stopper: image 4 distorts the fig.8, and 5 is hard to discern;
p53 Englishman's Loop: the SPart's overhand knot is misoriented, and the end's ov.knot is wrong-handed;
p54 Perfection Loop: image 2 conflicts with image 1, and the final image is ambiguous re which end is loaded;
p56 Bowline: says of this knot that is won't "slip, loosen, or jam", which is not true--it can do all of those (the last in capsizing, as seen in some mooring hawsers), and is why the SAR, caving, & climbing communities have favored a Fig.8loop;
p58 Double Bowline: makes the incredible claim "...some 70% stronger ... than the ordinary bowline"--nonsense--, and the orientation of the doubled turns is confused, with the tied knot's image showing a sort of midshipman's knot form;
p60 Triple Bowline: it asserts that this knot is "indispensible" for learning to climb--hardly the case--, and additionally adds the nonsensical adivce "if one of the [SParts] is shorter than the other, for security, tie it to its partner ..."(!!);
p63 Water Bowline: it shows the 2 half-hitch turns of this knot close together, as a clove hitch (they should be spaced), and claims that "when wet it's less liable to jam", which should surprise one having read on p.56 that a bowline can't jam(!);
p65 Bowline on a Bight: the knot is mistied, with the SPart running straight through the rest of the structure (hence, this would effect a noose)...
p68-9 Portugese Bowline: the image shows the inter-loop/shared part lying outside vs. within the SPart's half-hitch turn;
p71 Frost Knot: copying text from Lewis copied from Budworth, it wrongly asserts that this knot is nothing more than "a simple overhand loop that is tied in webbing instead of cordage"--bull: that would be more or less apt for an overhand tape loop, but the Frost knot (loop) is a means to tie jointly both a loop & bend, joining the ends of the tape (typically forming a etrier) in forming the small top loop;
p79 Bowstring Knot: the entry point of the end into the overhand part differs between images 3 & 4, with both being at diff. parts of the spine, yet image 6 shows it through the belly of the overhand, and as she equates this to the Honda loop, all of the entries are from the wrong side, for that;
p80 Double Fig.8 loop: says "it stays tied because there are no ends to work loose", but this isn't quite the case, and it otherwise applies equally to a great many other knots;
p86 Midshipman's Hitch: says "when stopped or seized, this is one of the strongest slide and grip knots", which, firstly I doubt has any real evidence to support it, and secondly if the knot is seized, it's no longer sliding;
p109 Grief Knot: I've never heard of this, and hope not to, again as it is worthless; the images here are royally fouled and the final shows one of the two ropes passing straight through the tangle of the other(!);
p131 Round Turn & 2 Half Hitches: wrongly shows a RT and larks head;
p141 Cow Hitch w/Toggle: images 3 & 4 show a toggle inserted absolutely pointlessly--the point SHOULD be to show the knot in the bight, w/toggle effecting the locking--;
p165 Timber Hitch: amazingly, this knot is grossly mis-tied, with all of the end's wraps that should be securing it against the tied-to object being instead loose between object and SPart(! no other author I'm aware of has botched this simple knot);
p180-1 "Double Overhand Bend": firstly, the name is wrong (which rightly denotes either the grapevine/dbl.fisherman's bend or a beefed-up ring bend), and the final image of tied knot is grossly misformed; moreover, she has copied Ashley's text for the thumb knot, the side-oriented overhand bend (in which the ends lie together, opposite SParts), in saying this knot was used to tie up "ham, bacon, & bananas";
p183 Carrick Bend: maybe she was confused by the bad photo in the later (not earlier!) Jarman book, but the final image is mis-formed, with one half of the knot collapsed but not the other (also likely a result of her using ropes of differing flexibility);
193 (Asher's) Seizing Bend: wrongly shows the end being tied to the SPart with an overhand vs. being tied into a bowline;
197 (Smith)Hunter's Bend: image 8 (final) is hopelessly wrong (in part from her trying to follow the ridiculous tying method given for this in Ashley's amended edition);
198 Zeppelin Bend: she shows her ignorance of Hunter's bend by saying of Z. that it differs in having ends perpendicular vs. alongside SParts--no, both are alike & perpendicular;>BR>200 Fisherman's bend: wrongly shows the overhand part in the gold rope misoriented.

Enough?
Damn, yes, enough of such books (...)