Presenting a New Hitch : the EStar-XX (based on EStar Hitch)

[Seaworthy Lass]

Now folks, don't take my word for it. I am at a taverna at the moment and my glass is being topped up a little too often, so these knots may be a little dodgy LOL.

Go tie them yourself and see.
I would love to hear what you think.

Cheers,
SWL xxx

[Seaworthy Lass]

Well, lots has been happening in 'knot world' since I last posted. The International Guild of Knot Tyers Forum is wonderful. Lots of other passionate knot tiers ready, willing and able to answer a novice's questions.

Firstly in answer to the big question (ready for the drum roll? ):

Yes, the way Grogs have animated the knot is correct. This is the way Evans presented it.
Someone on the IGKT forum gave me this link and I think it is probably the same as one Evans gave in a thread in January (I seem to remember the carpet):
http://www.bethandevans.com/pdf/estar.pdf

CF have had the scoop on having a brand new hitch revealed.
I officially name it the EStar-XX
(I was only joking calling it the SWL-EStar ).

I am naming it in honour of Starzinger and Xarax, both of whom were just a small step from discovering this hitch back in January.

No idea if I am able to name a hitch I came up with simply by reading Evans instructions, but I'll do it anyway LOL. They are two quite different hitches if you look at the photos of the ones I presented above. One is not a "reverse" of the other.

Since joining the IGKT yesterday, I found that a similar hitch was put forward by a member called Xarax in the IGKT forum in January 2014, around the time Evan was working on the EStar. Xarax named it the Bull Clove, but it was based on the Cow hitch and is a mid line hitch.

My theory is still that the EStar Hitch is inherently weaker than the hitch I have named the EStar-XX. Even though Evan's knot broke before slipping, I think this was only because it was tied on shackles (ie a small diamter pole). If the EStar hitch is tied around a larger object like a bollard (ours on board is 10cm diameter) instead of a shackle, I think this will be apparent (the bigger the diameter of the bollard the worse I think it will perform I think).

The figure of the EStar Hitch having a strength of roughly 50% of the line strength will I think be a lot less as the pole diameter thickens. I think it is likely to slip then before it breaks rather than breaking before slipping as it does on small diameter objects.

This was my comment way back on post #1 on this thread:

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I have a query for Evans or anyone else. The animated version shows the initial clove hitch reversed in an odd way. I've never seen a Buntline started like this and the quick animation confused me to no end at first. Is the knot equally strong if the clove hitch is started by passing under the standing end when this has been taken over the top of the bar from the front, as opposed to the traditional passing it over?

....... personally I would stick with the traditional Buntline as a starting point rather than what Grog has shown . It looks as if it would be weaker, particularly if the object it was passing around was of any significant thickness.

I hope very much that Evans will be able to do load tests on the EStar-XX using unsheathed Dyneema and a large diameter pole of 10-15 cm to simulate a bollard and present results.

If not, does anyone else here have access to load testing equipment?

So this is the front view of the new hitch, the EStar-XX:

[Seaworthy Lass]

This is the back view of the new hitch, the EStar-XX.

I wish I had known I was presenting a new hitch to the world and I would have tarted it up a little better when I snapped a photo of it yesterday. Old un-whipped line with a Greek olive honey scoop serving as a pole is so underdressed LOL.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Anyone testing this knot, these are a few comments I made on the IGKT forum:

[quote author=Seaworthy link=topic=4929.msg32382#msg32382 date=1403094007]
I have presented this knot to Cruisers Forum. I hope someone there is able to do load tests using Dyneema and making the pole bollard diameter (eg 10-15 cm). This is where I think the EStar-XX hitch will perform better than the EStar. It may still not be a great hitch for this purpose, but if it is not, maybe some of you here can come up with different suggestions.

It would be very useful to know how much larger the bollard can be compared to the line diameter before the strength of the EStar-XX hitch becomes very poor (50% strength is deemed acceptable at the moment, as it is the best we have, I would think under 30% of line strength is getting completely unacceptable). Why such a low % may be acceptable is that the line is not just used for its strength, but for its weight.
[/quote]

Anyone out there with access to load gauges that could test this hitch out please?
Edited to add: If you are, I think the knot needs to be tightened up very securely before load is applied (start by tightening the clove hitch in the middle then work out). Dyneema has a relatively low melting point and the heat generated by applying a lot of load quickly will melt it. Variation between how much the hitch is tightened will increase the spread of results probably.

[DoubleWhisky]

Hi

One thing I can say for sure - it is really elegant knot

What is Your intended use of it???

Congratulations



Tomasz

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by DoubleWhisky

Hi

One thing I can say for sure - it is really elegant knot

What is Your intended use of it???

Congratulations



Tomasz

Hi Tomascz
Thank you .

99% of the work was Evans' though, mine was just 1% of inspiration at the end . Evans unfortunately just came 'oh so very close' and stopped.

I think had he recognised the problem that would occur if the diameter of the 'pole' increased, this is possibly how he would have tied his hitch in the first place (or maybe he would have specified restricted use of it). This all started because I thought Grog had demonstrated his knot wrongly when I saw it tied in their demonstration a week ago. I initially did not even consider that Evans had designed it this way.

I found out the day before yesterday when I joined the IGKT forum, that another member Xarax formed a mid line hitch he called the Bull-Clove (based on a cow hitch, not based on the EStar - you can arrive at a knot from many directions) that was identical last January. If he had focussed on an end line, not a mid line hitch and selected which part to make the tail for this knot (there are two options and they are not the same) and worked out how to tie it and presented it to that forum, he probably would have called it something like the 'Endline Bull-Clove-Derived Make-the-Clove-First Hitch', as he was keen on descriptive names for knots .

So to create this knot just needed the very tiniest of nudges from me. Two people came extremely close to it from very different directions. I named the knot after the two of them.

I think we are still in infancy with what knots to use with Dyneema. Many of the best knots for it still only have a low strength compared to the line strength. This hitch will in time be improved on. Hitches are used to tie the free end of a line onto something else. Evans was fixed on thinking about shackles, the EStar-XX will still work if 'pole' diameter is increased. To what degree I don't know (needs load tests with lots of diameters of pole), but it will be better (call it gut instinct or simply woman's intuition LOL).

SWL

[Hard A Lee]

Hey SWL, I know this thread has been quiet for a while, but I just found it because I was looking at Grog's and was trying to tie the Estar hitch and was having trouble. It says it's just a buntline with an extra wrap and pass through, but that's not what the animation shows. So, which is the right way? or they both acceptable? I was looking for a knot to tie some amsteel and was all excited until I started trying to match the animation from a buntline starting point...

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Hard A Lee

Hey SWL, I know this thread has been quiet for a while, but I just found it because I was looking at Grog's and was trying to tie the Estar hitch and was having trouble. It says it's just a buntline with an extra wrap and pass through, but that's not what the animation shows. So, which is the right way? or they both acceptable? I was looking for a knot to tie some amsteel and was all excited until I started trying to match the animation from a buntline starting point...

Yes, exactly! The animation does not match the description.
My first thought was that the animation was incorrect.
But then I saw how Evans had tied the EStar on his website:
Load testing

The animation is correct.

I have presented the other version here and called it the EStar-XX.

The two versions are distinctly different when tied. I think that for the purpose Evans used (tying the line to the pin of a shackle), there will be little difference in strength between the two versions. BUT if the diameter of the object is increased, I think Evans' version (EStar) will have a tendency to slip and the other version (EStar-XX) won't.

If this is the case, then this comment on the Grog page is very misleading:
"Evans Starzinger devised and tested the EStar Hitch which he reports does not slip."

I sent Evans a PM three weeks ago and am still patiently waiting for him to comment (I think he is sailing at the moment) and for load tests to be done on a variety of object diameters to see when (or if) both versions slip.

Does anyone here have access to load testing equipment to test this out?

[estarzinger]

I have been single handing up in Greenland, and not had the bandwidth or energy earlier to address this thread. I am working my way back south now and am in easier waters (finally out of the iceberg area) and also have a little bandwidth at the moment, so:

Good enthusiasm! A couple comments & thoughts:

One of the big lessons from my testing is that fiber material makes a big difference in % knot strength, but that knot geometry variation makes a much smaller difference than commonly thought. Just for instance, the Eskimo Bowline is only very slightly weaker than the regular bowline despite a quite big difference in load geometry.

Regarding the EStar specifically . . . . I tested 4 different variations, including the one you present here. There was no statistical difference in their strength.

I did that testing on pins up to a D/d of 8 (6mm line on a 50mm pin). On D/d’s above that, this whole series of bunt line based knots is not really the best choice because it is a slip knot, which on a big pin will create a high throat angle, which is fundamentally weak. On a big pin you would be better off tying a big enough loop to create a throat angle of 3 or less, with one of the fixed loops that does not slip in dyneema (water bowline or figure 8).

The whole point of the Estar is not strength, but “no slip” in dyneema. In fact in Dacron line, the EStar is only very very slightly stronger than the simple buntline, and in dacron the simple buntline is probably preferred because it is easier to tie. But in dyneema the simple buntline slips and the EStar fixes that.

So, net net, tie whichever variation you prefer. The performance differences between them will be nil. I presented the specific variation I did because I have some significant real world experience with it (I have a french rigger friend who has tested it out on a couple very high performance boats) and so I know for a fact it works, not just on my test bench but also the ‘real world’.

The EStar loop is one of several loops that will not slip in dyneema. The Estar stopper is the ONLY stopper I found that will not slip – I tested all the common ones, all the ones on Animated knots, and several other obscure ones in Ashley. After testing over 100 variations, I never found a ‘relatively’ simple bend that did not slip. I did find three quite ‘big/complex’ ones that did not slip (two based on many turn fishing knots), but they are not very elegant. So, the bend is, in my mind, the most interesting area to explore further.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Hi Evans
Many thanks for the detailed explanation. Good to see you are back further south safely.

Originally Posted by estarzinger

The whole point of the Estar is not strength, but “no slip” in dyneema. In fact in Dacron line, the EStar is only very very slightly stronger than the simple buntline, and in dacron the simple buntline is probably preferred because it is easier to tie. But in dyneema the simple buntline slips and the EStar fixes that.

So, net net, tie whichever variation you prefer. The performance differences between them will be nil. I presented the specific variation I did because I have some significant real world experience with it (I have a french rigger friend who has tested it out on a couple very high performance boats) and so I know for a fact it works, not just on my test bench but also the ‘real world’.

It was the slipping aspect when "pin" size was increased significantly that bothered me, not the strength of the EStar. As the throat angle increases my theory is that the EStar will slip well before the EStar-XX. As the performance with small pin sizes is likely to be identical, I was puzzled why you selected the version you did. I was convinced initially Grog had displayed it wrongly until seeing the same image in your pdf .

Originally Posted by estarzinger

After testing over 100 variations, I never found a ‘relatively’ simple bend that did not slip. I did find three quite ‘big/complex’ ones that did not slip (two based on many turn fishing knots), but they are not very elegant. So, the bend is, in my mind, the most interesting area to explore further.

I have been thinking specifically about bends in Dyneema as well. I noted that the best you had come up with so far was to use two EStars.

My thoughts on this are:
The failure of traditionally excellent bends like the Double or Triple Fishermans may well be because of Dyneema's low melting point. In the Fishermans the inner portion of line is buried deeply and as the knot tightens, the generated heat will not dissipate well and this may weaken the knot.

So, with that thought in mind, what is the best "open" bend? I think it is the Zeppelin.

Next, the ordinary bowline slips, but converting the initial loop to a clove hitch (ie the water bowline) results in no slip.

So.... What about creating a clove hitch instead of a simple loop for each of the two ends when tying the Zeppelin?

I think this option is worth exploring.
In a moment I will hunt up a photo I took a few weeks ago, or just retie it to demonstrate what I mean. I call this bend the 'Water Zeppelin'.

Cheers,
SWL

[Seaworthy Lass]

Hang on a sec. I will just retie it and post the images.

[Seaworthy Lass]

This is the Water Zeppelin in its loose state. I have just made the initial loop for each line a clove hitch, as it is in the Water Bowline.

If Dyneema is being connected to Dacron, then only make a clove hitch on the Dyneema side.

It is very easy to tie if you are comfortable with the Zepp bend to start with:

[Seaworthy Lass]

And this is it tightened up.

As with all knots in Dyneema, I think it is critical that the Water Zeppelin is very carefully tightened well by hand to avoid heat generated with a sudden increase in load. For this bend, while it is in its loose state, simply tighten up the clove hitch as much as possible, then pull on the tail to finish dressing it. Repeat with the other side.

[estarzinger]

I will test the estar on bigger pins this winter, but my best guess is that it will not slip. I did do some testing with it using 80lb dyneema fishing line on 1" pins, and it did not slip and that would be a huge D/d. But as I said above, I think it is the wrong knot (including all the variations) for a big pin. I think a loop with 3 or smaller throat angle (note: that is the length of the loop divided by the pin diameter) is the 'correct' solution for a large pin. I would only use the estar (loop), with bare dyneema, with a D/d of 2 or less - it is a special purpose knot, but is valuable for sheets and halyard and such attached to shackles and padeyes.

regarding bends . . . .the double and triple fishermen that I have pulled to slip don't show any sign of actually melting. I have had an IR heat gun on them and they get warm but no where near melting point and when you take them apart they do not appear to have melted. But there may be some increase in lubrication even when they just get "warm".

I have tried to figure out what it is about the estar and water bowline and figure 8 that make them no-slip vs all the ones that do slip, but so far I have not figured that out. I have tried various variations of the common bends, including the zep, but so far have not found a no-slip one. The key feature in Bends (vs loops and stoppers) seems to be that both ends are fully loaded, and that makes slipping harder.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

I will test the estar on bigger pins this winter, but my best guess is that it will not slip. I did do some testing with it using 80lb dyneema fishing line on 1" pins, and it did not slip and that would be a huge D/d. But as I said above, I think it is the wrong knot (including all the variations) for a big pin. I think a loop with 3 or smaller throat angle (note: that is the length of the loop divided by the pin diameter) is the 'correct' solution for a large pin. I would only use the estar (loop), with bare dyneema, with a D/d of 2 or less - it is a special purpose knot, but is valuable for sheets and halyard and such attached to shackles and padeyes.

regarding bends . . . .the double and triple fishermen that I have pulled to slip don't show any sign of actually melting. I have had an IR heat gun on them and they get warm but no where near melting point and when you take them apart they do not appear to have melted. But there may be some increase in lubrication even when they just get "warm".

I have tried to figure out what it is about the estar and water bowline and figure 8 that make them no-slip vs all the ones that do slip, but so far I have not figured that out. I have tried various variations of the common bends, including the zep, but so far have not found a no-slip one. The key feature in Bends (vs loops and stoppers) seems to be that both ends are fully loaded, and that makes slipping harder.

I think it is worth trying the Water Bowline when you are back home.

I like teasing knots apart to try and see what makes the best ones work. Integrating a clove hitch seems to jam many knots (like the Buntline), but usually increases strength/non-slipping markedly.

I have looked closely at the quartet of intertwined overhands (the Zepp bend is one of these) and I am puzzled why it works so well. But it does .

Combining the Zepp with a clove hitch may well produce a bend that does not slip in Dyneema.