The rolling hitch (or Magnus hitch) is a knot used to attach a rope to a rod, pole, or other rope. A simple friction hitch, it is used for lengthwise pull along an object rather than at right angles. The rolling hitch is designed to resist lengthwise movement for only a single direction of pull.
A common usage while sailing is for rigging a stopper to relax the tension on a sheet so that a jammed winch or block can be cleared.
Famous quotes containing the words rolling and/or hitch:
“Look, we’re all the same; a man is a fourteen-room house—in the bedroom he’s asleep with his intelligent wife, in the living-room he’s rolling around with some bareass girl, in the library he’s paying his taxes, in the yard he’s raising tomatoes, and in the cellar he’s making a bomb to blow it all up.”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
“If we should swap a good library for a second-rate stump speech and not ask for boot, it would be thoroughly in tune with our hearts. For deep within each of us lies politics. It is our football, baseball, and tennis rolled into one. We enjoy it; we will hitch up and drive for miles in order to hear and applaud the vitriolic phrases of a candidate we have already reckoned we’ll vote against.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)