My new boat came with four nice fenders with whips spliced directly
on. The morning after the first night of the delivery home (on the
Erie Canal) one was missing because the splice had slipped loose. On
inspection, another was ready to go. Clearly the splicing task had
been given to "the new guy" and nobody double checked. I replaced
most of the splices on the boat with knots. The halyards had been
tied with bowlines - they had been changed before I raised the sails
the first time!

If you must splice onto something like a fender, its better to first
splice a eye, then pass the eye through the hole, and pass the bitter
end through the eye. This will put more tension on the rope itself,
and not on the splice.



Roger Long wrote:
If you knew exactly what was going on inside those splices, the know
wouldn't look so unreliable. It's all just friction. If you are
letting your halyards flog around enough that there is any risk of a
knot like that getting loose, you are doing something wrong.

The splice looks neater and more techie. It has a micro amount less
windage in a place that doesn't matter. Most important, it makes
twenty bucks for the marine store every time someone asks for one.
Then another twenty when they want to move the wear point or a whole
new halyard if the don't. Good deal for them.

If you ever have to go up the mast and snag a run away halyard with a
boathook, you'll be glad of that knot. The splice taper would have
jambed in the sheave while the weight of the knot and the clean stop
will let it come back easily.

I never heard of that knot but it's a great one and designed to be
used on that probably flogged and flapped around more than any others.