This Rescue Brought to You by the Number 8

I hadn't realized how many times the Number 8 comes up in this stuff. Just in rescue knots:



The Figure 8 On a Bight (aka "Figure 8 Double Loop")

The Figure 8 Follow Through (almost the same as the Figure 8 Bend, but tied with one rope as a hitch rather than as a means of joining two ropes, which is what a 'bend' is)


But wait, there's more! The rappelling descender of choice for distances of not more than 75-100 feet is "The Rescue 8," so called because of the rabbit-ear design that prevents the rope from slipping over the top of the larger 8 into a girth hitch (which we, in the old Boy Scout days, used to called the 'Lark's Head,' but which is also called a 'cow hitch').

A Rescue 8 descent device

I feel like I should put up one of those Sesame Street videos: "This Rescue brought to you by the letters E, M, S and the Number 8."

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:59 PM

    And sometimes referred to as an ‘8 plate’ to avoid confusion with a figure 8 knot.

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  2. Tonight I heard a 70 year old NC fire/rescue guy call that one knot a “Lark’s foot,” which is another name for the same thing that I’d never heard before.

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  3. If only there were knots named with the numbers 1-7, we could get the Count in on this.

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  4. There is a Figure 9 (and variations):

    https://www.animatedknots.com/figure-9-loop-knot

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  5. That's cool. I'd never heard of a Figure 9 knot. I like the usage notes on that site as well.

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