10-02-2015, 11:43 PM
I love knots I've been tying my own fenders and ocean plait Matts. A Mathiew walker with a little whipping is a nice way to finish of three and four strand stuff. A monkeys fist is a fun one to tie. I stuck a ball from a re grind ball mill in one. The thing could kill an elephant. Recently learned a new way to tie bow line when you need to wrap it around something and be fast about it, you basically make one loop like your starting the daisy chain. Make sure that is over hand knot is on th bitter end side and the working end becomes the slip in the "slip knot". Wrap the bitter end around your object of choice and run it back through your slip knot. Now pull the working end and invert the knot. Wala you have a perfect bowline.however It is easy to have it end up cowboy style. Not a big deal but be ware that a cowboy style bowline knot is no Bueno when used as a sheet bend. It loses effectiveness when it only has two point of tension on the knot vs the bow line has three. Also the double overhand stopper knot is a good and easy one to learn and remember. I prefer it to the figure 8 in most cases. As far as adding loops in the mid section of rope. For a directional knot I like the figure 8, for a knot that going to have big loads and needs to come undone easy an alpine butterfly knot is great. And though I love to tie and love the look of the Spanish bowline I haven't yet found a use for it . I'm sure it would be a fine replacement to a alpine buterfly but then so would a bowline in a bite. A sheet bend is good and you can join different size line effectively but only to a point. Once the one line gets two small you have add additional wraps to the sheet bend. The knot is named after an explorer ,I can't remember his name rite now. I could talk knots all night but I can't, I'm going sailing tomorrowâµï¸ð». Here here to the sheep shank Paul. Also you never told me what you thought of a weighted centre board. Like 1/4 inch stainless???