Field manual
HITCHWISE
20 knots, tied one step at a time
Most of us know one knot: the tangled overhand we learned as children. When the tarp needs pitching, the load needs securing or two lines need joining, that's not enough. Hitchwise teaches you to tie proper knots yourself, rather than showing a finished photo you can't work backwards from.
The step player draws the rope on screen, with the working end and the standing end in different colours. Step forward and back at your own pace with a short instruction for each move, or press Animate and watch the knot form in a loop. Every crossing shows clearly which strand goes over and which goes under.
- Stoppers
- Loops
- Bends
- Hitches
- Binding knots
Filter the library by difficulty or search by name. Each knot comes with a note on what it's best for, its strengths and the situations to watch out for. Mark the knots you've mastered and a progress ring fills up. Star favourites, and test yourself in practice mode on names, uses and families, with your best score kept.
Choose rope colours, animation speed and optional haptics. It all works offline, with no account and no ads.
Get Hitchwise on Google PlayPackage com.ropeworks.hitchwise
How a few turns hold a heavy load
Wrap a rope around a post and you can hold back far more than your hand could. Friction grows with every bit of rope in contact, and it grows by multiplying, not adding. It's the reason a round turn comes before the half hitches in so many hitches. The rule is the capstan equation:
load = hold × eμθ
Here μ is the friction between rope and post, and θ is the angle of wrap in radians. One full turn is 2π.
Rope on the post
With typical friction, one full turn gives about 4.8 times the grip. Two turns give about 23 times, and three turns about 111 times. Holding back 100 kg takes about 21 kg in your hand with one turn, 4.3 kg with two, and under 1 kg with three.
Because the effect multiplies, doubling the number of turns squares the advantage: 4.8 × 4.8 ≈ 23. The size of the post doesn't enter the formula at all. Only the friction and how far the rope wraps around.
What's not here: no knots, no step player and no library. This is a friction toy with illustrative friction values. It ignores rope stiffness, stretch and wet conditions, and it can't tell you what a real rope, post or knot will hold. The knots themselves, step by step, are in the app.
Who publishes this manual
- Studio
- EchoCedar Games
- Company
- AMBERCAT LTD
- Director
- Richard Irving Austin
- Address
- Suite 2, 1st Floor, Metropolitan House, Station Road, Cheadle Hulme, Cheadle, SK8 7AZ, United Kingdom
- knots@ambercat.cyou
If a step in the player seems to cross the wrong way, or a knot note doesn't match what happens in your hands, tell us which knot and which step. Those are the reports we act on first.