Note sull'episodio
The monkey's fist is a woven ball of rope at the end of a line, built with a regular over one, under one weave of six surface parts and usually doubled or tripled for bulk. Unlike the Turk's head knot, which follows a single continuous line, its diagram uses three interlocking circles that form three-dimensional Borromean rings. It is tied flat on a table by coiling three sets of turns, each deflected 90 degrees from the last, then dressed tight until the edges curl into a hollow sphere. That hollow core is the point: on a heaving line of about 30 feet, with an eye splice or bowline at the other end, the weighted knot carries a light line across the water so dock workers can haul over the heavy mooring cables.
Sailors packed the core with stones, marble, scrap wood, tightly folded wet paper, and even grapeshot, and a weighted fist on a short line became the slung shot, a pocket blackjack for port brawls. The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency's Code of Safe Working Practices for Merchant Seamen, section 25.3.2, now says a monkey's fist must be made only of rope with no added weight, calling weighting unsafe and poor seamanship. Stripped of its payload, the knot found new jobs in commercial pair trawling and in the soft sandstone of Germany's Elbe Sandstone Mountains.
- Cutting any one of the three Borromean rings makes the whole structure fall apart.
- Modern ships may use a small manufactured sandbag in place of a weighted knot.
- Pair trawlers throw monkey's fists between boats to pass the tow lines of one shared net.
- Climbers jam the knot into cracks, where the rope deforms and grips instead of splitting the rock like a metal cam.
- Jewelers tie miniature monkey's fists in fine wire for cufflinks.