Rope is one of the few things on this app's list that cannot be improvised well and cannot be done without. Every tarp, every load, every gate, every repair on a fence and every attempt to move something heavy comes back to it.
The useful set is small. Seven knots cover nearly everything a household does, and the value is entirely in knowing them automatically rather than in knowing more of them.
The seven
Plus one lashing, the square lashing, which joins two poles at right angles and is the basis of every improvised structure.
Learn them in this order: bowline, round turn and two half hitches, truckers hitch. Those three cover most of it.
Bowline
The most useful knot there is: a loop that will not slip tighter under load, and that unties easily afterwards even when it has been heavily loaded.
Use it for putting a loop in the end of a line, tying round a post or a tree, making a handle in a rope, joining a rope to a ring, and rescuing a load.
The rabbit story is how most people learn it: make a small loop in the standing part, the rabbit comes up out of the hole, round the tree, and back down the hole. It sounds childish and it is the reason people can still tie it thirty years later.
Check it before loading. A bowline tied wrong looks nearly right and slips.
It can shake loose when the load is intermittent rather than constant. Finish with a stopper knot in the tail, or a half hitch round the loop, for anything left unattended.
Round turn and two half hitches
The workhorse for attaching a rope to something fixed.
A round turn means the rope goes fully round the post twice, which takes the strain by friction before the knot does any work. That is the whole point: you can hold a heavy load with the round turn while you tie the hitches at your leisure, and the knot can be untied afterwards even after being loaded hard.
Then two half hitches round the standing part to lock it.
Use it for mooring, tying to a rail or a ring, hanging anything, and any load that will be on for a long time.
Clove hitch and its limitation
Fast, easily adjusted, and it can be tied in the middle of a rope without access to an end, which is why it starts and finishes lashings.
It slips if the direction of pull changes, and it can bind hard under heavy load. That makes it excellent for temporary work and for lashings, and unreliable for a load you are going to walk away from.
Use it for starting a lashing, hanging a tarp ridge line, temporarily securing to a post.
Do not use it for anything where the pull will swing around, or anything critical left unattended.
Truckers hitch
The one that surprises people, because it is a machine rather than a knot.
It creates a loop partway along the rope, the working end passes round the anchor and back up through that loop, and pulling down gives you roughly a three to one mechanical advantage before you tie it off with two half hitches.
Use it for everything on a roof rack, tightening a tarp, strapping a load on a trailer, tensioning a washing line, and pulling a fence taut.
This is the second knot to learn and it is the one that makes a tarp usable in wind. See waterproof repair and make one warm room, both of which assume you can get a sheet tight.
The friction costs you some of the advantage, so it is nearer two to one in practice. It is still the difference between hand tight and properly tight.
Taut-line hitch
An adjustable loop: it slides along the standing part when you push it, and grips when it is loaded.
Use it for tent guy lines, anything that needs tensioning by hand and holding, and washing lines.
It is what a guy line runner does, and it is worth knowing because plastic runners break and vanish.
Sheet bend and figure of eight
Sheet bend joins two ropes, and unlike a reef knot it works when the two ropes are different thicknesses or different materials. Double it for a slippery rope or a large difference in size.
A reef knot is not a bend. It is for tying a bandage or a parcel, it capsizes under load, and joining two ropes with one is a genuine hazard. This is worth unlearning deliberately, because it is the knot most people reach for.
Figure of eight is a stopper: it stops a rope running out through a hole or a block, and unlike an overhand knot it does not jam solid after being loaded.
Square lashing
The one lashing worth learning, and the basis of every improvised frame, tripod, shelter, gate repair and drying rack.
- Start with a clove hitch on the vertical pole, just below where the horizontal one will cross.
- Wrap: take the cord over the horizontal pole, behind the vertical, over the horizontal on the other side, behind the vertical again. Three or four full wraps, pulling each one tight as you go.
- Frap: take the cord between the poles, around the wraps themselves, three times. This is what pulls the wraps tight and it is the step that makes the difference between a lashing and a bundle.
- Finish with a clove hitch on the horizontal pole.
Tight at every stage. A lashing is only as good as the tension in it, and it cannot be tightened afterwards.
A tripod lashing joins three poles and gives you a stand, a hoist point or a frame. Worth learning as the second lashing.
What knots cost you
Rope fails without warning. Natural fibre rots from the inside, and synthetic rope degrades in ultraviolet light while still looking fine. A rope that has lived on a fence post for two summers may have lost most of its strength invisibly.
Looking after rope
- Whip or seal the ends. Synthetic rope can be melted carefully; natural fibre needs whipping with twine or a tight tape wrap. An unfinished end unravels the whole rope.
- Coil it properly and hang it, off the ground and out of the sun. Ultraviolet is what kills synthetic rope.
- Dry before storing. Natural fibre rots quickly if put away damp, and the rot is inside where you cannot see it.
- Keep it away from acids, solvents and battery spills, all of which destroy synthetic fibre without visible signs.
- Avoid sharp edges. A rope pulled over a sharp corner cuts under load. Pad the edge with a bit of hose, wood or cloth.
- Inspect before anything that matters: run the whole length through your hands feeling for soft spots, hard spots, glazing and cuts.
- Retire it honestly. Demote a suspect rope to jobs where failure costs nothing, and mark it so nobody else uses it for anything else.