Knot Wednesday: The Monkey’s Fist
Behold! The Monkey's Fist
Every ocean scientist should know how to tie a half dozen or so knots. One of those should be a monkey’s fist, name because it looks like a small clenched fist, it was originally tied into the end of a line or rope to add weight. The weighted end could be thrown easily over a horizontal yard on a mast or between the ship and dock during tie up. Stories also tell of sailor using them in bar fights. But I and KZ know nothing about that.
They are an elegant knot and you can impress others by making either cufflinks, for those fancy nautical occasions, or as a keychain. I have used them repeatedly as underwater float in polypro line that can be easily grabbed by a submersible or ROV manipulator arm.
Monkey's Fist made of polypro keep these line handles above deployed pieces of wood. The line hovering in the water can easily be accessed by ROV and submersible manipulator arms
Date Posted: December 2, 2009 at 12:31 AM
December 2, 2009 at 10:47 AMMiriam
A fine knot! And I’m equally impressed that you’ve decided to start tagging posts “bar fight.”
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December 3, 2009 at 1:25 AMTweets that mention The Monkey’s Fist | Deep Sea News — Topsy.com
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December 4, 2009 at 3:33 PMMark
Thanks for posting this – brings back memories. We used to make these in boy scouts and flail them around like medieval weapons. Ours had several more layers than the one pictured.
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December 7, 2009 at 11:29 PMbowsprite
they float! you are not making the wraps around lead, are you? what do you use inside? I have several around as door stops around ping pong balls, but the balls get crushed.
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December 8, 2009 at 9:02 AMDr. M
No insides and use polypro
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December 13, 2009 at 11:41 AMMatt H.
Ah this is one not I keep on meaning to learn. You should do a knot segment like the marine phrase. For the DOI boat class you couldn’t pass if you couldn’t do the bowline and about 5 other knots. My old coworker used to make these when bored and just harass people, so yeah def a weapon.
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