BASIC SAILING: Knots

Since rope is a vital part of a boat's equipment, a good sailor should be familiar with how to handle rope and how to tie a few basic knots.

• Rope is used for controlling the sails, docking, mooring, and anchoring. Knots are needed to control all of the various lines, painters, halyards, and sheets on a sailboat.



• Rope used to be made only from natural fibers, but now there are many types of synthetic rope. Synthetic rope is used on sailboats because it is durable, even though it sometimes gets slippery when wet.



• There are two different types of rope construction:
  • laid - where the strands are twisted together (mooring and anchor lines are usually three-strand)
  • braided - where the strands are interwoven (sheets and halyards)


• A knot is usually found at the end of a rope, but the term is also used to describe a hitch (which is used to secure a rope to another object), and a bend which is used to tie two ropes together.



• Just like sailing, knotting has its own terminology. The running end of the rope is the part used in making the knot. The standing part is not used in forming the knot (it is the part under strain). The bight is the bend in the rope between the two ends.

• Get Knotted! For additional instructions on how to tie these knots, visit this site which provides an animation for each knot. It's a very effective way to learn; provided by a Scout Group in East Sussex, UK.