Knot: Midshipman's Hitch

Based on this tutorial but mostly this animated knot

1. Cross the tail over the standing end. This is "the crossing".
2. Pass the tail around the standing end and up through the bight so that it circles the rope above the crossing.
3. Pass the tail through the bight one more time. This time it should wrap above the crossing but below the previous one. Now we have an awning hitch. This can take load.
4. Put some load on the awning hitch
5. Crossing the rope in the same direction as before, tie a half hitch below the crossing.

Adjusting

This can be adjusted by holding the knot and pulling the section of the rope that was wrapped through the knot from either side.

Other notes

If tying with very slippy rope, 3 circles may be required.

Knot: Lark's head and half-hitch

 Based on this tutorial.

1. Wrap the column once and pass the entire tail of the rope through the bight at the head to form a lark's head around the column.
2. Reverse direction and wrap the column one more time below the previous wrap.
3. Pass the entire tail through the newly formed double-bight. The tail should pass upwards, behind the 2 lower strands.
4. Reverse direction to bring the tail over to the opposite side of the lark's head.
5. Pull the tail upward to form a bight with the rest of the tail falling down across the wrap.
6. Pull the rest of the tail upwards, behind wrap and through the bight to form a half-hitch.
7. Tighten the half-hitch.

Orientation

You can adjust the half-hitch so that the tail of the rope is coming out of the knot upwards or downwards, as you like.

Knot: Somerville Bow Line

1. Wrap the rope at least twice around the column (so 4 strands everywhere).
2. Leave about 10cm loose at the head.
3. Bring the tail over the top of the 4 strands.
4. Make a loop in the tail. The loop should pass under the tail. So now, the 4 strands and the loop are all laying under a section of the tail.
5. Take the head up through the loop and back across that section of the tail and feed it under the 4 strands coming up through the loop again. Probably easiest to reach 2 fingers through the loop and under the strands to grab it.
6. Tighten the loop.

The Somerville bowline is a secure knot but it is very hard to release it if the tail if under tension. You first have to ease the tension but that may be difficult. If needed, consider the following modification.

Slipped version

• At step 2: leave about 20cm at the head, instead of 10cm
• At step 5: above when feeding the head through the loop, fold it over so that you feed 4 strands through the loop and tighten on that. The head never goes through loop.
• When you need to release, pull the head. This will pull those 4 strands back out of the loop and the know will release.

Other notes

After tying, the head and tail will point in a opposite directions, perpendicular to the 4 strands. When you wrap the strands around the column, if you choose to put the head above the tail then at the end, the head will point down and the tail will point up and vice-versa.

The loop in step 4 can pass over the tail if you really want but then in step 5, you have to bring the head under the strands that are around the column but then into the loop from the top. Otherwise the loop will not form a knot. It's easier to form the loop this way but it's definitely harder to feed the head into it. Maybe it's useful sometimes...

Different technique is in this tutorial.