Vertical caving terminology and methods > Knots > Common knots
Common Recommended
A knot tied on a bight, with bunny ears (two loops), each of which can be clipped into a carabiner. The lengths of each loop can be easily adjusted, but the two ropes emerging from the knot cannot be easily adjusted. Designed to be used on a Y-hang. This variation has the traverse line coming in to the middle of the Y. More wasteful and less easily adjustable than a bowline on a bight. Repeated cross loaded may mis-adjust the lengths of the loops, and severe cross loading causes the knot to deform and lose some of its strength, or capsize into a form of the knot where the adjustment between the two loops passes freely between the loops, instead of being wrapped around the body of the knot. However, it generally performs better than a bowline on a bight when cross loaded. The knot has a detrimental quality that if one of the loops is disconnected from whatever it was connected to, that loop can pull back through the knot. With one of the loops, the knot will continue to function as a figure of 8 on a bight with one strand performing an extra turn, but with the other loop, the knot capsizes into a slipped version of a figure of 8 that can undo completely. If the knot has been loaded first, however, then it will normally tighten up and not allow the loop to pull back through the knot. Made from a figure of 8 on a bight with the loop fed back into the knot, and wrapped around the body of the knot, so that it becomes two loops.
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