5 Tightening Systems for Rideglines and Rope Bridges

so it never fails you get a perfectly made survival shelter a perfectly made tarp or poncho shelter and after sometime after your cordage starts to stretch the next thing you know your tarp or your poncho is just flapping in the breeze so I'm going to show you what I feel are the four most useful knots and tightening systems for bridge lines and guidelines for survival shelters now regardless of what type of tightening system I choose to use on the other side I've still got to anchor it securely on the far side or the other side so there are several different knots I can use on this side I could basically any anchor knot but I could use an anchor Bo and I could use a round turn and two half hitches but because I'm going to be tightening this down and putting it under a pretty good load I want to be able to untie it later so I'm gonna use a figure eight retrace and that's some wild blueberries grow in there so to start this knot I need to make sure I've got enough to go around the anchor point and actually retrace the knot so I'm going to pull up you're probably a good four and a half maybe five feet I'm going to take my bite that I've formed and twist it once twist it twice and then pull by running in through that loop that creates my figure eight I'm going to wrap that around my anchor point but I'm simply going to retrace the figure eight that I made that's my figure a tree trace anchor not on the far side all right so let's take a close look at this taut line hitch I'm going to take my running in and go around the anchor what I'm going to do is form a half hitch by making a loop or this the running end crosses over the standing in then I'm going to push that running in working in up through and that's going to create my first half hitch now for my second half hitch I'm going to go around the bottom of the standing end with the working end and go around the bottom of the standing end and then rather than coming back through the loop I formed here I'm going to come back up through the loop that was formed here first and then I'm going to go through that second loop so now what I've got is two half hitches with the diagonal locking bar then to finish the knot I'm going to do a third half hitch by bringing the running end the working end under the standing and again and this time I'm just going straight through this loop but that's that that that half hitch creates and I'm going to pull it tight and what that does is it allows me to slide this to tighten up my ridgeline when I need to but then when it's got tension on it it holds tight so I can easily adjust the tension on my ridge line or my guidelines let's take a look at that again I take my working in I come around my anchor point now my standing in is on my right-hand side and my working ends on my left-hand side I'm going to cross that over the top to form a loop and I'm going to come up through the loop that I made towards my anchor point and I'm going to form my first half hitch then I'm going to come underneath my running in is under my standing in now I'm going to form a second loop well before I go through there I'm going to go through from the bottom the top the loop that's around my anchor and then go through I'm going to pull that tight that's going to give me my two half hitches with the diagonal locking bar now I'm going to take the running end once again come under forming a loop I want to make a half hitch by placing the running end back through that loop and tighten it all down all I have to do is slide that not until my ridge line is nice and tight if I need to adjust it I can release that tension if I need to tighten it I can tighten it easily and it holds fast that is the taut line hitch let's take a close look at how to start off a trucker's hitch right and there are several different variations of a trucker's hitch and the reason it's so variable is that it basically consists of a slip knot and your running end right so the knot that you use to form the slip knot can vary so but the one I see most commonly is an overhand slip some people call it a slippery half hitch but it's really an overhand slip to take a close look at how to tie this knot basically all we're going to do is form a loop and we're not going to take the running end and pass it through we're going to take the the standing end and pass it through to form our slip so basically now we've got our overhand knot and we've got a slip and what you want is the overhand knot to slip on the working end you don't want it the other way around all I have to do is take my running in go around my anchor I'm going to come back through the loop that's formed on that slip then we're going to tie two half hitches I'm going to make a loop come through tighten that down make another loop come through and tighten that down once I've got my half hitch is established I'll have to just put it the height I want it pull towards the anchor point and allow the ropes to slip that's going to get my ridgeline as tight as I want it to be if I want to adjust this and loosen it I can just slide this knot adjust it to where I need it and then tighten it again so that is a trucker's hitch all right first for this pacific tightening system we want to try to get a good look at how to tie the prusik all right so we're coming around the anchor point of course my standing in is going off towards my other anchor but I've got my working end here so what I want to do is begin my prusik when I start it by leaving this is the first tail I'm going to make a loop with my running end on top then I'm going to wrap from inside to outside this being the inside going that way I'm gonna make two wraps then we're going to come around the front to form sort of a half hitch there now I'm going to go underneath the standing end creating a window here a little loop now I'm going to be working and wrapping from outside to end twice once twice once I've got that established I'm going to dress it down and I want these parallel wraps to stay parallel and this cross locking bar is what actually locks it so it's easiest if you milk from the outside in and pull slack on your running end that is your prusik knot your running end your cross locking bar for parallel wraps that don't cross each other anywhere now a pretty sick knot works best when the rope that you tied the prusik in is a smaller diameter than the rope you're actually tying the prusik on a four wrap prusik is kind of a minimum prusik and it should work for this but because this is the same diameter I could put you know six to eight parallel wraps in here and that'll make it hold a lot better now before we tighten this I want to do some kind of stop or not have I have more tail I could throw a bowline in here but that's a little more complicated than it needs to be I could use a figure eight stopper but I can just also use a simple overhand make a loop come back through from top to bottom that'll keep your prusik from being pulled out when you tighten it up but now to tighten it I've got this cross locking bar and there's not much tension on it now so it doesn't really matter but normally when I want to tighten it and use my thumb and I can push down on that locking bar and that takes the tension off these wraps and I can slide it easily get it to where I want it to be then all I have to do is make sure to pull up on that locking bar and pull down on the running in and that'll tighten it right down and get that a little tighter and that is another way to establish a Ridgeline a variation of the prusik tightening system critics are designed for the person could be tied on a rope of smaller diameter than the rope you're actually tying it on it actually holds better that way so a variation that you can do is to tie use the second piece of cordage and then tie a prusik on one end on one side of your anchor then with your rope on one side bring your second piece of cordage on the outside and tie another prusik so that you end up with a prusik on both sides of your anchor I'm gonna stop or not in both of these now I've got my Peru six established on both sides and I've got my stopper knots in I make sure the dress down and they're nice and tight then come to the other side all I have to do is pull tight and slide the Peru sticks and that also locks down the ridge line the next one I want to show you isn't as adjustable as the other three but it's a really secure system in fact it's so secure you can also use this same figure eight transport tightening system to construct a rope bridge for an emergency water crossing you know so I generally like to use this one just to keep up that skill but like I said it's not as adjustable as the other ones but it's extremely secure so what you want to do is first you gotta establish your figure a slip knot so you form a Bight twist it once twist it twice and then pull a bite through the top loop of the figure eight that forms your slip up from there before I run this around I'm going to make a locking half hitch so basically I'm just making a window I'm gonna slide that over that loop that makes a locking half hitch my running in has to go around towards my anchor and that forms the half hitch and it locks this down and take some of the tension off of this it makes it that much making it that much easier to untie especially for something like a rope bridge after you've put several people across it and then from there I run this around my anchor point now even with the other hitches I don't generally like to run rope back through itself and then pull tight on it and pull tension so this one especially liked to throw a snap link in there a carabiner so that as I'm doing the friction doesn't you know wear away at the nylon and it makes your rope last that much longer so I'm going to come around you can see that half hitch is going to lock off coming around the tree around my anchor I'm simply going to drop it in that carabiner now you can see what I've got I've got my my figure eight slip that slip is locked off with locking half hitch it's going around my anchor system through my carabiner and now when I pull tension back towards the anchor point that's going to tighten my ridgeline then I can simply bend it around the tree coming around the bottom let me give it one more ramp after I wrap that around the second time that's taken pretty much all of the tension off of this it's not going anywhere but I need to secure it and I'm going to secure it using two half hitches one of those is going to be on a quick-release so basically what I've established is a full round turn that's two wraps around the anchor make my first window pull my half hitch through there's my first half hitch make another window and instead of pulling it completely through I'm just gonna pull it bite through and that'll give me a quick release so what I've got now is extremely secure tightening system with my figure Eight's lip-locked with a half hitch goes around back through my carabiner and a full round turn and two half hitches with the quick-release this is extremely secure and like I said this is the same system this in a variation of the prusik tightening system that I would use for a rope bridge for emergency water crossings extremely secure and fairly easy to untie after you're done simply pull the quick-release release tension on that half hitch and then slowly release the tension on your round turn and you see that comes apart comes out of the carabiner easily that locking half hitch it taking a lot of tension off of this so that's easy to untie and then because this is a figure eight it's extremely easy untie put the rope snap back parallel and push down on that locking bar and even after all that tension I put on it the knot comes free easily okay so those are four different tightening systems that you can use to keep your your tarp or your poncho from flapping in the breeze hopefully it inspires you to go out and get outside and get in the woods and try some of these for yourself thanks for watching

Channel: The Gray Bearded Green Beret

Views: 62,728

Keywords: Survival, Bushcraft, Preparedness, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Camping, Fire, Shelter, Food, Search and Rescue, Knives, Axes, Pathfinder

Id: FvfxcBnxUv0

Length: 17min 59sec (1079 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 12 2018