Ashley Book of Knots

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An English edition of the ABoK. The typical page layout and the high number of nodes per double page can be clearly seen.

The Ashley Book of Knots is an encyclopedia on the subject of knots and knots and the standard and reference work on this topic. It was completed in 1944 by artist and seaman Clifford Ashley . He had worked on it for eleven years.

content

The Ashley Book of Knots is over 600 pages long and contains 3854 entries with more than 7000 drawings depicting over 2000 different knots. Each knot is shown what it looks like, what it is used for and how it is made. In addition to instructions and use, the history of some nodes and their historical mention are listed.

Occasional symbols are used to emphasize the importance or advantages and disadvantages of a knot - for example, a star marks the best knot for the purpose, a skull warns of dangerous use. However, these symbols must always be viewed against the background that at the time the book was written, only cordage made of natural fibers was used. Modern plastic materials regularly behave differently at the knot and within a knot (under load). A certain knot can be "safe" in a hemp rope, in a synthetic fiber rope the same knot can be life-threatening.

The Ashley book of knots lists knots for various professions and activities, most of the knots in the book come from earlier professional shipping on sailing ships, as in real life.

Even if many knots have lost their importance due to modern connection techniques, the Ashley book of knots is still one of the most important books about knots thanks to the detailed presentation of the topic. The German edition was translated by Gerhard Meyer-Uhl and published in 1977.

Suitability as a nomenclature reference

Ashley had no intention of providing a nomenclature , and his book is therefore of limited use as a basis. In the sense of Ashley, knowledge of the manufacturing process of an existing knot is necessary to be able to use the correct name. He explains this in detail in his foreword. However, this makes it impossible to uniquely name a node whose history is unknown.

Although Ashley has compiled the largest collection and numbered each drawing, the book is not a good reference for node names. Many nodes have different uses for which they are each named differently. Accordingly, these nodes are also shown several times under different numbers. Many names are also present several times, but show a different node. In the German edition, there is also the fact that translations of the node names are also not uniform. This leads to a corresponding confusion of terms, both in the book of knots , as well as in the subsequent literature and in use by various interest groups.

Use as a numerical reference

By numbering each node, a system for numerical referencing of nodes was made possible, which has not lost its importance to this day. The Ashley numbers are also used on Wikipedia. The information is usually given in the form "Ashley # 1234" or "ABoK # 1234", sometimes only with the number. Since Ashley also lists the same knot several times depending on the application, the same knot can have several ABoK numbers, see for example Webeleinenstek .

expenditure

  • Clifford W. Ashley: The Ashley Book of Knots . Doubleday, New York 1944, ISBN 0-385-04025-3 (English original edition).
  • Clifford W. Ashley: The Ashley Book of Knots. Over 3800 knots. How they look like. What they are used for. How they are made. Translation by Gerhard Meyer-Uhl, Edition Maritim, Hamburg 1982, ISBN 978-3-922117-37-7 . (Since then several unchanged reprints.)

Comparable works

Enzyclopedia of Knots.jpg
  • Raoul Graumont; John Hensel: Encyclopedia of Knots and Fancy Rope Work . 4th edition. Cornell Maritime Press, Cambridge (Maryland) 1977, ISBN 0-87033-021-7 (contains over 3,668 nodes with black and white photos).
  • Geoffrey Budworth: The ultimate encyclopedia of knots & ropework . Hermes House, London 2006, ISBN 1-84309-146-1 (contains over 200 knotting techniques with colored “step by step photographs”).

Trivia

In her book Ship Messages - “Shipping News”, the author Annie Proulx introduces certain chapters with illustrations of knots and a short accompanying text from this book. (btb Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3-442-73611-0 )

See also

Web links