Throwing rope
The skill of accurately throwing a rope is required to set climbing ropes higher into the tree , or to move from branch to branch in the crown .
Begin by making a ‘ throwing knot ’ ( shown on the right ): coil a rope , wrap the coil and pull a bight through the eye of the coil .
Toss the throwing knot by taking both the bight of rope , and the tail of the rope below the knot , and holding them together in your hand . The two parts to hold are shown with red circles to the right .
The more rope that is pulled into the two bights below the hand , the further it will be possible to throw .
For long throws it may be necessary to add extra loops in the throwing knot or ‘ off hand ’ to achieve further aerial distance .
Once tossed , the throwing knot will uncoil , and the rope end will drop down to the climber .
Ropes can be thrown in this manner over the head , using an underhand technique or the more widely used sidearm toss . The illustration below shows a sidearm toss with the throwing knot in an open form ( it can be tied in a closed form ) and extra loops in the offhand . The open knot will allow the knot to uncoil as described earlier with the working end then dropping conveniently to the ground .
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