sheepshank
Sign in to saveA shank is a type of knot that is used to shorten a rope or take up slack, such as the sheepshank. The sheepshank knot is not stable. It will fall apart under too much load or too little load.
Key facts
- Knot.image
- Sheepshank knot.jpg
- Knot.name
- Sheepshank
- Knot.caption
- An unloaded sheepshank tied in nylon rope
- Knot.type
- shortening
- Knot.origin
- 1627
- Knot.related
- Catshank, Dogshank, Bell-ringer's knot
- Knot.releasing
- Non-jamming
- Knot.uses
- Provides loops, shortens or removes slack from a rope, bypasses a frayed section of rope
- Knot.caveat
- Spills if not under tension
- Knot.abok_number
- 1152, #1153, #1154, #1158, #1159, #1160
via Wikipedia infobox
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
15 sectionsContents
- Construction methods
- Modern usage
- Disadvantages
- Variants
- Man-o'war sheepshank
- Sheepshank with Marlinespike hitches
- Kamikaze knot
- Use
- Bell-ringer's knot
- Catshank
- Dogshank
- Further reading
- See also
- References
- External links
A shank is a type of knot that is used to shorten a rope or take up slack, such as the sheepshank. The sheepshank knot is not stable. It will fall apart under too much load or too little load.
The knot has several features which allow a rope to be shortened: It provides two loops, one at each end of the knot which can be used to pass another rope through The knot remains somewhat secure under tension; the coarser the rope the more secure it is (see Disadvantages, below) The knot falls apart easily when tension is removed
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “sheepshank” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.