A Knotty Problem -- updated photos

 

     Or, I thought Sail School was going to put me in a “remedial knots” class!

I am a person who prefers to tie her boat up without help. No one does it the way I want it done. I know where I want the lines, how slack I want them, what knots I want used. I have it all figured out.

I didn’t get there quickly, or easily. In Sail School, I really struggled with some knots, particularly the bowline. That’s unfortunate, because the bowline, with its cousins and aunts (“bowline on a bight,” for instance) are highly useful knots. After I’d managed to learn the bowline, I could only do it if no one was watching. No kidding. (That means I really didn’t know it very well.)

So if you’re struggling with a knot, or knots, you have my full sympathy.

Here’s what you need to know about knots: they need to be easy to tie –- and also, easy to Untie. Consider the cleat hitch:

 

This cleat hitch above has been done perfectly. The working end –- the one that leads to the boat –- is leading from the right direction on the cleat. There are no extra wraps. Someone is holding the bitter end tight, but it isn’t wrapped ‘round and ‘round the cleat.

Ever see that? (See above.) Don’t do that. You might need to free that line quickly, and wrapping the extra line around the cleat –- or doing more loops on the cleat than necessary to complete the knot –- only slows you down. You might have to undo it in the dark, and having lots of extra line wrapped in silly places for no reason will only make that harder. If there’s extra line, just coil it neatly. Then no one will trip on it, but it won’t interfere with the line’s uses, which are both to hold the boat and to release quickly. Your dock will look neat and tidy, and your neighbors will not mutter your name under their breath.

As you look at the cleat hitch above, you’ll also see that it is actually attractive and symmetrical. It has one loop on each end, and two parallel sections. It just looks good. Good knots look good. Here’s a clove hitch:

Again, you can see that it is symmetrical and attractive. Ditto for a bowline. When it is pulled tight, you’ll see that the base of the knot has three neatly interwoven lines. When you look at these knots, you can easily figure out how to untie them. This is how nautical knots turned into an art form. Put “Celtic knots” into Google and you’ll find dozens of pages full of beautiful examples of intricately-woven knots. The knots you use while sailing will be simpler and more utilitarian, but they can still be frustrating to learn.

I’ve heard the craziest tips for the bowline: the rabbit hops out of the hole, runs around, gets scared and jumps back down into the hole. The truth is that you can stick the line in the wrong place at any point while that poor rabbit scampers around! There's a much easier way: just go to this website!

http://www.animatedknots.com/

You can practice at your computer, or –- really –- there’s an app for that! You can get it at that website and put it on your phone, or IPod, or IPad.

That’s what I did. I put it on my Ipod, and when I needed to use a bowline, I just whipped that baby out and accepted its help. I also practiced knots as I watched TV.

See, it isn’t enough to know the knots. You have to be able to do them quickly, and easily, and often, while telling other people “NO! Please don’t jump from my moving boat to the dock!” or “NO! Don’t push the boat that way! We’ll hit the boat in the other slip!” or “NO! Please wait for directions …” People really want to spring into action while you are leaving or returning to the slip, and often they feel they should know what to do even when they don’t. You have to be able to keep a sharp eye on the other people on the boat while docking or undocking. You don’t need to be racking your brain trying to remember how to work that cleat hitch, or untangling the mess that was supposed to be a bowline.

LESSON LEARNED: Practice knots until they're instinctive. Some day when other things are going wrong, you'll be very glad you did.