The Blue View - Knots Revisited

A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of presenting a seminar on anchors and anchoring techniques. One of the questions asked was what knot I used to attach a snubber to an anchor rode. This brought two things to mind: first, at least one person stayed awake for the presentation, and second, what a knot geek I am. I must have twenty books and apps for knots aboard Nine of Cups, but only two get used regularly. One is the terrific app, Animated Knots by Grog. This is loaded on my iPad, and includes dozens of animations showing how to tie many more knots than I’ll ever use. When I want to refresh my memory on how to tie a particular knot, a quick look at Grog’s app is all it takes. For example, I like the Zeppelin Bend, which is not only good for securing a Zeppelin, should I ever encounter one, but also works well for tying a loop in bungee cord, and glancing at the animation reminds me how to tie it.

The other reference is every knot geek’s bible, the Ashley Book of Knots by Clifford Ashley. I wrote a Blue View on the topic a few years ago, and thought it might be fun to share again.

Knots hold a real fascination for me. I particularly appreciate a well-tied knot that is perfect for a specific application. There are a handful of knots that most sailors know and use frequently…the bowline (BO-lin), the reef knot, and the clove hitch come to mind. Marcie knows the basic knots, and in fact, can tie a bowline faster than anyone I know. But beyond these, and maybe tying a bow in her shoelaces, she quickly loses interest in knots.

I have several books aboard that show how to tie a number of useful knots, but to my knowledge, the absolute best reference is The Ashley Book of Knots. If you’ve ever read The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, you might remember that each chapter begins with an excerpt from Clifford Ashley’s book.

He spent his life not only identifying and cataloging knots, but researching their uses and history. It took him eleven years to compile them in his book, which describes 3,854 knots. While the majority of the knots are intended for the sailor, there are knots for every purpose imaginable. Want to secure a bale of cotton? Knot #2073 is the one to use. Want to hoist a horse aboard your boat? Knot #2192 is the one for you. Want to make a snare? You might look at Knot #477.

A couple of decades ago, Marcie bought me a copy of Ashley’s for my birthday. It is now falling apart from heavy use. It’s water stained from a dousing it endured a few years ago. The dust cover has long since left this world. It still remains one of my favorite books.

One of my many uses for it is to identify a knot I’ve encountered somewhere. In a recent blog post, Marcie wrote about visiting the bell ringers at St. David’s Cathedral. Something I noticed was that all 12 bell ropes were secured in nice coils using the exact same knot. I asked the bell ringer whether this knot had a name and whether all bell ropes were secured in this fashion. He didn’t know if it had a name, but he said that that was the knot he was taught to use. When we returned to Cups, I looked through Clifford’s book, and sure enough, knot #172 is the Bell Ringer knot. Knot #173 is an alternative that is used if the bell rope is extra long or heavy.

While we were traveling in the interior of Ecuador once, we happened onto a farmers’ market. All sorts of local animals, including dozens of pigs were being taken to the market for sale. I noticed that each of the pigs was being led by a rope using the same unusual knot. All the farmers seemed to know and use this knot for their pigs. It was a three-loop harness, one loop going around the pig’s neck, and the other two loops going around the pig’s front legs. I later found this exact knot in Ashley’s. It was Knot #1110, a knot originating in South America and used widely as a hackamore or emergency bridle. Apparently, it is also the preferred knot to lead a pig to market.

Ashley invented a number of knots as well. He was a modest man and never named them after himself, but over the years, many were given his name. My favorite of his knots is called the Ashley Bend. A bend is a type of knot used to unite two ropes or the ends of the same rope. The Ashley Bend, only referred to as Knot #1452 in his book, is easy to tie, is strong, but never jams or slips. I find it particularly good for tying bungee cord into a loop. The following photos show how to make it.

The Blue View - The Ubiquitous Bungee Cord

 

I must have a hundred uses for bungee cords aboard Nine of Cups, but my appreciation for them was slow to evolve. When we first moved aboard, I bought a bag of various sized bungee cords, each pre-constructed with hooks on the ends. Quite frankly, I didn't use them very much. It always seemed they were too long or too short for the particular application I had in mind, and if they were left unhooked for even a short period of time, they soon disappeared overboard.

I discovered that you could buy locking hooks that could be attached to the ends of any length bungee cord. The locking hooks stayed in place when the bungee wasn't under tension, so the bungee cord didn't get swept overboard, and it could be made to any length I needed. The downside was that the hooks are somewhat expensive and are a bear to assemble.

Then one day I realized that while many knots will not stay secure, there are several knots that do work well with bungee cord. I use two in particular: the common bowline works well to form a loop in the end of a bungee cord, and the Ashley Bend (see directions for tying this knot here) does a fine job of tying the two ends of a bungee cord together. If I want a hook on the end, I can attach a carabiner with a bowline. If, once it is tied, I pull the knot as tight as I can, it stays in place quite well. Quite the revelation, and it only took me about 4 years to discover it. (More evidence that anyone with even the meanest of intelligence can do this.)

I now carry two spools of bungee cord aboard, one 1/4” diameter and one 3/8” diameter. These two sizes handle most any application. When I need a bungee cord, I cut the necessary length from the spool, burn the ends with a lighter, and tie whatever knot is called for. It couldn't be simpler.

I use bungee cords for a myriad of applications. Here are some of them:

• Securing floorboards. The floorboards aboard the typical boat are removable to gain access to the bilge. We use this area to store spare parts, canned goods and heavy tools. If the boat were to be knocked down or, heaven forbid, rolled or pitch-poled, the floorboards as well as anything stored underneath could inflict some serious damage to the boat and crew. Thus, it is important to secure them in place. Bungee cords work well for this application (see a previous post on the subject of securing floorboards).

• Securing our pots and pans. We hang several pots and pans from hooks in the galley. When we are in a quiet port, they stay nicely in their places. When we are underway, however, the motion of the boat soon has them swinging and banging against the bulkhead and each other. I attached an eye pad on one side of each pan and a cup hook on the other. Using short lengths of bungee with a bowline tied in the ends, each pan is securely and quickly contained, yet easily accessed when needed.

• Securing halyards. We really dislike the sound of our halyards slapping against the mast and spreaders, especially down below. While is is not at all unpleasant to hear halyards clanging against a mast on someone else's boat as we walk through a marina, it is annoying onboard Cups. The sound seems to get magnified below deck, especially in the evening when we are trying to get to sleep. To prevent the clanging, we use bungee cords. For some of the halyards, we use a bungee cord permanently attached to a shroud with a bowline that has a carabiner attached to the halyard end. In other cases, we have a loop made up using an Ashley bend. The loop is attached to the mast pulpit, and the main halyard shackle clips to the loop and is tensioned.

• Fishing line shock-cord. When we fish, we usually troll with a lure attached to a steel leader, which is attached to 200 feet of 1/4” polyester line with a strength of 500 pounds. The line is wrapped around a winch in the reverse direction, then secured to a cleat with a few feet of slack in between. When a fish hits the lure, the line spins the winch, alerting us to the fact we have a fish. When the slack is taken up, the winch stops spinning and the line goes taut. We soon found that we needed to add some shock cord to the system or the sudden tension on the line would often either break the hook or jerk it out of the fish's mouth. I now tie two eyes in the line about 10 feet apart, between the winch and the stern rail and attach a length of bungee between the two eyes. The elasticity of the bungee prevents the sudden jerk and we catch far more fish.

• Lee cloths. Lee cloths are rectangular pieces of heavy cloth that keep us from falling out of our berths when the boat is heeled or rolling. On Cups, one side is attached to the berth and the other side is attached to cleats in the ceiling. Once we are in the berth with the lee cloths attached and tight, it is quite snug and comfy. The problem we had was figuring out a quick way to attach and detach the lee cloth from the ceiling. If we used hooks or carabiners with lines, it was difficult to get enough tension in the lee cloth to feel secure. If we used lines with knots, we could get enough tension, but it usually took a couple of minutes to get everything just right and the same amount of time to extricate ourselves when it was time to get up. This wasn't usually a problem unless there was some emergency topsides requiring the immediate assistance of the off watch. What we now use are several bungees with a bowline in one end and a carabiner attached to the other end. To setup the lee cloth, each of the bungees is attached to a cleat in the ceiling with the bowline, and the two or three bungees that are closest to the feet are attached to the lee cloth with the carabiners. When the person off watch climbs into the berth to get some sleep, it is an easy matter to clip the remaining bungee cords to the lee cloth. If an emergency arises, it takes only seconds to disconnect the lee cloth.

There are a few other bungee cord applications that we have tried or thought about that either didn't or probably won't work quite as well:

• Bungee jumping from the spreaders

• Giant slingshot that allows Marcie to send parts and tools up to David while he is up the mast

• Giant slingshot for rotten fruit wars with other cruisers

• Small slingshot for shooting dried peas at birds perched on the masthead – or at David to amuse Marcie while he is up the mast

The Blue View - Clifford Ashley

“When I arrived at a proper age I went to sea and served my apprenticeship in knots aboard the whaling bark Sunbeam. My chief instructor and the most quoted man in this volume was Captain Charles W. Smith, then acting mate. Under Captains Smith's tutorship I progressed rapidly in knots and marlinspike seamanship to a point where even my teacher admitted that if I persevered and maintained my health I might someday hope to grasp the rudiments of the art.” Ashley Book of Knots

Almost two decades ago, when sailing off into the sunset was still a distant dream for us, I read the book The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. Something that was quite intriguing to me was that each chapter began with a quote from Clifford Ashley's The Ashley Book Of Knots. Usually the quote was a couple of sentences that described a particular type of knot, like a bend or hitch, and perhaps a little about its history or its use. The quotes were interesting and I think they were meant to be allegories to the story as it was unfolding.

I had never heard of The Ashley Book of Knots. I found a copy at a bookstore, browsed through it and was quickly hooked. It is a compendium of over 3000 knots and 7000 illustrations, but what makes it much more than just a huge collection of knots is Ashley's narratives about the history and uses of all those knots and the life of the sailor. Marcie bought a copy for my birthday 18 years ago. It is now battered and weathered from hard use and its exposure to life aboard Nine of Cups for all those years. Not unlike the crew (or this half of it, anyway), I suppose.

When we visited the historic whaling town of New Bedford and were wandering through the whaling museum there, we saw a number of nautical paintings by Clifford W. Ashley. Until then, I didn't know Ashley was remembered for anything other than his well known book. What I discovered was this native son of New Bedford is just as well known for his hundreds of paintings and sketches.

He also wrote and illustrated two other books that described whaling and the life aboard a whaler. While I am in no way a proponent of the mass slaughter of whales that began in the mid 1800's, I do have an admiration for the hardships and dangers the typical whaler endured. Ashley probably did as much as anyone to preserve and record this heritage, and he did so in a manner that was as interesting as it was beautiful.

I also have an appreciation for the patience and craftsmanship of the sailors' arts over the centuries, especially the practical knots as well as decorative knots and rope work. I remain optimistic that if I study hard, persevere and maintain my health, even I might someday hope to grasp the rudiments of the art.