User:Bijanabar/sandbox

The C-Rad knot is a highly sophisticated and rare knot, classified in the Monkey’s Fist Knot family. It is characterized by its resemblance to a monkey fist; the creation of a loop of rope and by inability to see the ends of the rope. The knot was created by member's of the Johns Hopkins Outdoors Club, a member of the Intercollegiate Outing Club Association. While the knot is currently largely unknown except to a small group of collegiate climbers, it is up-in-coming and is becoming popular in the outdoors community.

History
The C-Rad knot was conceived in the spring of 2014 by James C Pritchard in the living room of Charles Commons suite 1126, a dorm at the Johns Hopkins University also known as DRough. After learning how to tie the Monkey’s Fist, Conrad dared to experiment with the timeless knot. When he tied the Monkeys Fist with the both ends of the rope instead of one, the C-Rad knot was born. Everyone in the room immediately saw the significance of this breakthrough and began sharing the knot to the world. To date only a handful of people have tied this knot correctly and even fewer are qualified to teach it. But this is changing.

Use
The C-Rad knots provides a much needed and stylish solution to those who believe they should never be in a situation where the need rope but don’t have it. A correctly tied C-Rad knot can act a necklace and can be easily accessed and untied at moments notice if needed. For example, participants of Hopkins Pre-Orientation Appalachian Backpacking trip (AB 4) were able to quickly use the C-Rad Knots around their neck to extended their P-Cord in their tarp set up. There has been the idea that the C-Rad Knot could act in the same way as a Prusik Loop and be used as tether or belay rescues. This is extremely dangerous and should never be done without being on back up belay. Under extreme force, the ends of the C-Rad Knot can slip out. Furthermore, the knot loses it characteristic shape and its aesthetic qualities. More research is being conducted regarding the strength of the C-Rad knot and of other possible uses for the knot.

Tying
The C-Rad Knot is tied by:  1) Fold the rope in half. The C-Rad Knot is best tied with 5 feet of 6 mm rope, about the same amount of rope needed to tie a monkey’s fist. The first fatal mistake in tying the knot is starting off with the wrong amount of rope  2) Approximate 13 inches from the ends of the rope  3) From that spot, wrap the rope around your fingers once so the ends of the rope are the left side and come from the top of the loop  4) Put the ends of the rope through the center of the loop and lay the ends over the top of the loop. If tied correctly, it should look like a circle divided in half. The rope often becomes crossed at this step. If this second fatal mistake is not corrected, the knot will not be properly dressed.  5) Takes the ends of the rope and push them towards you on the left side and away from you on the right side  6) Lay the ends of the rope across one set of ropes and tuck them into the center of knot 

Current List of People Who have Correctly tied the C-Rad Knot
1. Conrad Pritchard  2. Bijan Abar  3. Hannah Melton  4. Bailey Surtees  5. Jessamy Taylor  6. Jillian Tse  7. Simon Marshall-Shah  8. Alex Sivitskis  9. David Hamburger  10. Molly Kamicar <br/ > 11. Alex Taylor <br/ > 12. Leo Kuwama <br/ > 13. Mauricio Silva <br/ > 14. Antonio Spina <br/ > 15. Gwen Martin <br/ > 16. Emily Hadley <br/ >