Knots

[alan_fincher]

There's been much starting to appear on here about knots again over the last few days.

 

Whilst I admit it's great to be able to tie every knot in a sailor's reportoire, I find that a few of the simplest ones meets most of my needs when working the boat.

 

By far the most useful, on canals, I now know to be called the tugman's or lighterman's hitch, following a thread on here on the topic...

 

Link to Tugman's Hitch

 

I didn't know it was called this when taught it working with a hire fleet as a Saturday job, but there are few times I tie up using anything else.

 

It can be used around a spike, a bollard, a tee stud, in fact just about anything you can put a rope round the back of and over the top of.

 

One advantage is used round a spike, you can withdraw the spike, and the whole thing falls away completely untied. Brilliant for securing on a short tie up.

 

This can, of course, also be a disadvantage if a spike gets pulled out of a soft bank and into the water, by someone going past enthusiastically ! Because of this, when mooring up properly, I prefer to use a spike with a loop on, pass the rope through this, back to the boat, and make the knot at the boat end.

 

A very simple, and extremely useful knot.

 

b.t.w. No doubt somebody will tell me I should call them warps, not ropes, but I've really only ever heard them called ropes until recently!

[DHutch]

Also another great knot that i use often when sheeting somthing down in the trailer is what was taugh as "the lorrymans hitch" its very usfull if you want to get a rope good and tight, and if you slicken it off and unhook it from the sheeting hook, the while lot pulls out like it was never there!

- However, when i google "lorrymans hitch" it comes up with a diffrent, although simular knot. I will have to draw it.

 

To tie it, you take the lenght, and first form a 'sticky out bit', then you take 1-3 turns around this, leaving a medum sized loop hanging down, then you pass a loop of the rope though the prevously formed 'medum sized' loop, and hook this second look over the sheeting point.

- You the have a lenght of rope that comes down, round the sheating point, and thought a loop in the rope. You can pull down on the end of the rope with significant force, and if you want i really tight, you can hold the end, and stand a foot on the loop.

- Then you are left with the end, that can be eather be finshed with a round turn and two or three half hitchs, or a clove hitch flowed by more sheeting down.

- And then as said, all you have to do is lossen the end, unhook it of the sheeting hook, and it all pulls out easy as pie!

 

I think thats clear?

- Dont know if anyone recognises the knot or can name it?

 

 

Daniel

 

 

Daniel

[John Orentas]

b.t.w. No doubt somebody will tell me I should call them warps, not ropes, but I've really only ever heard them called ropes until recently!

 

 

 

Alan.

 

Call them ropes if you like, the working boatmen usually did, they also talked about left and right and never port and starboard.

 

All this ponsy maritime terminology only crept in along with microwave cookers painted with roses and castles, fancy waistcoats and spotted hankerchiefs.

[Amicus]

snip

 

- Dont know if anyone recognises the knot or can name it?

Daniel

Thats what I know as a "Waggoners Hitch"

[David Schweizer]

Alan.

 

Call them ropes if you like, the working boatmen usually did, they also talked about left and right and never port and starboard.

 

All this ponsy maritime terminology only crept in along with microwave cookers painted with roses and castles, fancy waistcoats and spotted hankerchiefs.

I hope I'm not the only one who thinks the same John. I never saw a boatman wearing a bowler hat, or a spotted handkercheif, and can anyone produce a photo of a genuine Boatmann wearing that sort of stuff. In my experience they wore the same sort of clothing as all other working men of the time, flat caps, or as my Dad did, his old demob trilby and overcoat. The younger men tended to wear either a beret or knitted woolly hat. The women wore typical working women's clothing of the day often with an apron, and usually sporting a headscarf.

 

My only variation with your recollections is that on the GU some of the older boatmen tended to refer to the inside and outside rather than left and right (inside being the towpwath side), and they often called the lighter ropes lines.

[John Orentas]

David.

 

Well I was only making the point that 'rope' was never a dirty word and as you say other terms were used mainly relating to the thickness. Never heard about inside and outside before but that by definition had to be local, is that why the horses down there had longer legs on one side than the other. I have very few real recollections I am limited to what I have picked up from people that have.

Edited November 18, 2005 by John Orentas

[alan_fincher]

David & John,

 

I think you are both pretty spot-on here.

 

I certainly wasn't apologising for use of word 'ropes', and I believe 'ropes' and 'lines' is what boatmen would have said, (not forgetting 'straps', as in "cross straps", for example, for towing an unloaded butty immediately behind the motor).

 

I'm only old enough to remember the very tail end of commercial carrying, (honestly!) But when I look at old photos in books, certainly caps, berets & woollen hats are very much order of the day, although some of the more famous male boatmen usually feature wearing a Trilby of some description, (David will now name them!).

 

Some of the slender Robert Wilson volumes show that in Willow Wren days, clothing had sometimes progressed to jeans and denim jackets, and occasionally nautical style hats, as if captaining the Titanic! One picture even shows someone on working boats in a cowboy hat - apparently complete with silver badge.

 

Even looking at pictures in the 1960s and 1970s, I remain fairly amazed that whilst male dress always looks entirely practical, most women folk are still in long flowing skirts, and, if cold, pretty cumbersome looking coats. I know that women in trousers was less common then, but it's surprising that I've only seen a handful of shots where an actual boatwoman is wearing what would appear to have been more easy to work lots of locks in - apart from of course pictures of the "Little Women" who worked boats during the war, and who look entirely different from the other boatwomen of the day. (But then David has already pointed out families where the woman very much "wore the trousers" despite always appearing in skirts, though!)

 

Anyway, I must go. I urgently need to order up my embossed leather windlass belt holder, complete with boat and captain's (i.e the wife's!), name engraved into it! It will go well with me corduroy breeches, I can't help thinking

[DHutch]

I use the word 'rope' and 'warp' fairly loosly, depending. If using the warp instead of rope helps to convay more infomation i wouldnt hesitate to use it, but thats all.

 

For instance, if i was talking to my grandad, i might well say "Ive just finshed doing the splice on the new stern warp" because i know he knows what the word means, and it helps him to know exactly what im talking about. (and also, he's quite into all his marine turnimolagy)

 

The same with the word 'spring' - I know he knows what one is, and its quicker to say 'spring' than "a rope running approxmantly parralel to the boat to prevent fowards/backwards movment"

 

But if my cosin was staning on the bow, and i wanted him to chuck me the 'bowwarp' , i would just say "rich, chuck us that rope" becuase its obvouse what i want, so so the use of fancy marine terms is unessary and pointless.

 

I hope that made some sence?

 

 

Daniel

[David Schweizer]

(not forgetting 'straps', as in "cross straps", for example, for towing an unloaded butty immediately behind the motor).

and a single rope used to tow a loaded butty was called a snubber.

 

although some of the more famous male boatmen usually feature wearing a Trilby of some description, (David will now name them!).

Couldn't really resist that one. Arthur Bray and Joe Skinner come immediately to mind.

 

(and the not so famous also) I wear one- bought years ago in a charity shop - best hat I have ever had. It keeps the sun out of my eyes and stop the rain from running down my neck, it will absorb an enourmous amount of water without getting my head wet, and is always dry in the morning.

Edited November 18, 2005 by David Schweizer