Re: Butterfly or Alpine Butterfly?
Posted: Nov 11, 2015 2:52 pm
The "false" butterfly already has a name. It is the Englishman's Loop or Englishman's Knot and is #1038 in Ashley's Book of Knots. It was previously used as a loop knot for fishing, probably using gut. It was tied like a midline loop, but near the end of the line and then used as and end of line loop, loading just one leg. Even as a fishing knot, Ashley didn't have very high regard for it and mentioned other knots that he recommended as more suitable. It has very poor symmetry. The overhand knots nest poorly since they are opposite parity, which is a particularly bad feature in climbing - you would never tie your prusik loops with mirror image double overhand knots. It seems to be constantly trying to capsize under load due to these structural problems. I would not use this knot for anything.