David M. Delaney, June, 2010
A bend is a knot for fastening two ropes end-to-end to make a longer
rope, or to make a rope into a loop by joining its ends.
The Zeppelin bend is a relatively new knot (twentieth
century). It is exceptionally reliable and easy to
untie after having been subjected to heavy load. Of all well known
bends, only the carrick
, and the Alpine
are as consistently easy to untie after heavy load.
testing several bends.
carrick bend is easier to tie than the Zeppelin Bend, but its structure
is harder to remember. It is probably less secure than the Zeppelin
Bend in stiff or slippery rope.
The Zeppelin bend is said to have been invented by a US naval officer
named Rosendahl, who made it the standard for mooring airships, hence
the name Zeppelin. The Zeppelin bend was unknown to Ashley, so was not
documented in his famous Ashley
Book of Knots
. Of all important knots, the
structure of the Zeppelin bend may be the easiest to remember.
The mnemonic for the structure of
the Zeppelin bend is "b over q". See the first four photographs below.
You make a q with the right hand
rope with the descender of the q on the far side of its standing
part. The q's standing part extends to the right. The descender
of the q goes down. You make a b with the left hand rope with the
riser of the b on the near side of its standing part. The b's standing
part extends to the left. The b's riser goes up. You place the b on top
q. The riser and descender should be on the outer sides of the
stacked b and q. You wrap the descender of the q up and back through
loops and bring it around to align with its standing part. You wrap the
riser of the b down and back through both loops and bring it around to
align with its standing part.. You pull at and fiddle with the knot
until it assumes its compact working form. Thus:
The b over q mnemonic makes it easy to remember the structure of
the Zeppelin Bend and to reconstruct a means of tying it when needed,
but the knot is slightly awkward to tie with no further
If you start by wrapping the top of the b over and through the baseof
the b before even creating the q, as shown in the first and second
second photos below, you have the start of a slicker way of tying the
Zeppelin bend that can be remembered with the same b and q mnemonic.
The third photo adds the q, the fourth photo wraps the tail of the q.
Once you have the above method in mind, you don't need to hold the
ropes so precisely. We can exploit the fact that the "wrapped" b in the
first and second photos above is just an overhand knot to get an even
slicker method. Once we slightly expand the lefmost of the three
"holes" in the overhand knot, as in the second photo below, we can see
that the overhand knot is just a distortion of the wrapped b in the
second photo above. The third and fourth photos below form the q.
The fifth photo wraps the tail of the q by taking it through the knot
beside the wrapped top of the b, but in the reverse direction.
The above methods can be adapted to tie the Zeppelin Loop, a superbly
secure and unjammable fixed loop for the end of a cord. Start
with an overhand knot as far from the end of the cord as the
circumference of the desired loop and slightly more.
When you look at roo's
diagram for the structure of the Zeppelin Loop
you will see where much inspiration for the above came from. The
rest of it came from J.C.
Sampson's verbal procedure
for tying the
Zeppelin Loop as given in the thread, "For those familiar
with Zeppelin Loop & Zeppelin Bend
", at the forum of the International
Guild of Knot Tyers
, the same thread that roo created to introduce
his diagram. See also JCS's
verbal procedure for tying a Zeppelin double loop
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