UKC

Evening all,
Is it safe to use an overhand knot on the bight (think that's the right name, link attached to confirm) midway along a rope for tieing in to a belay? I've assumed not as it isn't used for tieing in to the harness.

Personally I use a figure of eight on the bight but thought this might be faster.

Would also be interested to hear peoples views on a clove hitch for this job.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=overhand+on+the+bight+knot&client=ms-andr...

Cheers for any comments

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:
Perfectly fine.
But a clove hitch is less hassle.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Fine, very strong.
Just not that common, as difficult to fine tune.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:
Perfectly safe, and much more so than a clove hitch which could easily wiggle its way loose with the constant tensioning/untensioning of a toprope, and then could potentially roll and cross load the biner. Definitely not safe IMO!

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

I'd use alpine butterfly, easier to undo after loading has been removed.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

It's safe. It's hard to think of a practical climbing situation in which the overhand is unsafe. They can be very hard to undo when heavily loaded.
jk

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

>I've assumed not as it isn't used for tieing in to the harness.

The couple climbing next to me on Saturday seemed to think it´s o.k for tying in, they only had 40 years experience though

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Chris Tan Death Knot!

In reply to jkarran:



If you ever get a knot you can't undo try gentle blows with a rubber mallet with something smooth on the other side.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Thanks for the replies everyone, that's cleared that up. I'll learn an alpine butterfly and see how I find it.

As a side note the like and dislike buttons have been really useful here. It's nice to see opinions verified so simply.

In reply to Baron Weasel:

Wetting the knot helps massively too.

In reply to Baron Weasel:


That's great advice as I have now found a use for my rubber mallet that I have been carrying for all these years!

In reply to Baron Weasel:

A slight aside but if you have an overhand in your system an it's likely to get weighted, so becoming hard to undo, you can clip a spare karabiner round one of the pairs of strands forming the knot when you tie it. When the knot is weighted it'll tighten on the 'biner which you remove before undoing the knot. Just don't clip anything critical into the karabiner.