6/21/2016 4:37 AM
Love us some Frost Knot. Started using this one years ago when canyoneering. The Water Knot is the traditional knot used to join the ends of webbing, but as stated in the video, “can take an act of God to untie”. Untying is a big deal. Why? You may not always want your webbing tied in a loop. You may need to join multiple lengths of webbing and use to bail-out, lower a casualty, assist with edge transition, or perform a nuisance rappel. Also, there was a great study of the water knot by Tom Moyer presented at the 1999 ITRS conference. Basically it stated we really do not have to worry about a single dynamic failure of the water knot, but rather be concerned with a cyclic failure. With a 250 pound load, the tails of the water knot slipped 0.0035 inches per cycle... so with the typical 3” tail, the magic number was 806 cycles before one of the tails (Top) slipped through. Interesting to note, it was cycles...not creeping. This paper is available in our research portion of the website (Knowledge Management).
Anyways, this is about the Frost Knot. The frost knot is a slightly bulkier knot, which accomplishes two things...one, much easier to tie and untie, even when soaking wet, and two, adds strength by decreasing the harsh angles that occur when the water knot loads. We use the Frost for anchors, slings, hasty harnesses and we can even use it in cordelette for things like purcell prusik.
Element Rescue, Knot Series (2015)