One of the (sailing) skills I don’t yet have is good rope work. I like knots and love to fool around with rope but I don’t know any advanced sailing stuff. So I grabbed my old trusty length of nylon (she’s been with me since the Hole’s days and was once a covergirl) and tried to do an eye splice. It didn’t turn out completely horrible but it’s not pretty.

To try and tidy it up I also whipped the end. I used minty dental floss: mmmmm, minty fresh! The finished result is quite sturdy but in need of some reworking to truly be as strong as possible. Remember, every time you bend a rope, it loses some of its strength! I will either cut it off or try the other end next. I also could use a stiffer rope as this soft nylon unravels a bit too much. If you are interested in trying yourself,  Animated Knots is a great site to learn from.

Another knot I ‘learned’ recently was the water bottle knot (jug sling or bottle sling). It’s an ancient knot used to carry bottles or jugs by their necks. Handy!

 

The thing about learning these knots — any knots —is it takes a lot of repetition to gain a mental understanding of the knot and build the muscle memory to be able to retain it even after extended periods of non-use. I’d say about half of my old climbing knots are still second nature to me and the others I have to think about first. There are even one or two more obscure ones that I just can’t remember. So ya, practice makes perfect…