Social media is swamped with bad knot videos. Here’s our take on knots you want to learn how to tie when learning how to sail a boat.

During the Battle of the Bulge in WWII, when American forces were back on their heels at Bastogne, the German commander sent a demand, suggestion, whatever, that the Americans surrender. The American response?

”Nuts!”

So… knuts. Bad knots, or good ones tied badly, suck. But, this isn’t going to be a doctoral dissertation, or an episode of Baffle ‘em with Bullshit. This is about two knots, or hitches to be specific: the Rolling Hitch, and the Cleat Hitch. One is seldom taught at sailing schools. The other is but usually incorrectly.

First, however, let’s start with what American Sailing (ASA) wants schools to teach students instead of the rolling hitch. It’s called a clove hitch. Most schools, perhaps almost all schools, teach it. They should be teaching the far more secure and versatile rolling hitch instead, as we do. These hitches are used to tie a line perpendicular to a (typically) round object, like a tiller, lifeline, piling, etc. Very common for locking a tiller in place when putting a boat to bed. (What’s a tiller? The stick you steer with, attached to the rudder/s.)

The difference between the two? One extra wrap. It makes all the difference. The rolling hitch with its extra wrap is ultra secure, and after it’s tied, the load can change direction, go back and forth, and the knot can often, perhaps usually, be moved back and forth along the object it’s tied to and still reset itself and stay put. Not so with the clove hitch.

Even ASA warns students that the knot isn’t so secure. So why use it? Ultra simplicity? Students have to learn more complicated things, so why dumb it down here and set students up to fail for life? We successfully teach the rolling hitch. So can other schools. It’s not magic. Sure, one of our students had to come up with a brilliant memorization aid when struggling to remember the sequence, but someone else would have eventually – or us.

Dumbing things down, versus coming up with more clear and concise descriptions and explanations, does students a disservice by insulting their intelligence. They were smart enough to sign up for sailing lessons, recognizing that it’s a potentially complicated endeavor. So why sell them short? It’s just lazy.

You can have a lazy sheet, but don’t be lazy about your knots.

-invoking George Carlin, The 7 Dirty Words routine, while keepin’ it clean.

Anyway, the rolling hitch is the single best, and most versatile, knot I know. It doesn’t do everything or replace everything. But, it’s the closest thing we have to a “quiver killer.” (One snowboard that does it all, more or less, is how that phrase is usually used.)

We came across one video of it recently in social media. The clown called it a “double clove hitch.” There is not one. How do I know?

1. Not my first rodeo;
2. No book contains one.

We had a student once who signed up for our Start Bareboating course. He was an experienced enough sailor to take the course, of course, but he was a true knot expert. He just knew all kinds of knots. Seemed to know when and why to use them as well. At one point, I asked in awe how he’d become so well versed.

“I’m an insomniac. When I can’t sleep, which is often, I pull out the knot book and learn a few knots.” Poor bastard. Turns out, he got very badly seasick on the second day of the course and didn’t return for the third. (Poor bastard…)

I don’t know if he mentioned which book or books he read, but I eventually came across the boating bible of knots. It’s called the Ashley Book of Knots, and it’s “the one.” It’s old, with mediocre (if kewl) illustrations, and lots of it is esoteric and extraneous. But, most serious boaters will want to have a look at it and, possibly, own a copy. The hardcover makes for nice decor on a bookshelf or coffee table, too.

This is the reference standard, and, there’s no double clove-hitch in it. But, there are two versions of the rolling hitch. The “double clove-hitch” clip shows one of these. I actually learned it from a sailing student who was an avid technical climber. I trust climbers. Their lives literally hang in the balance based on knots and line handling. The variation he taught me works better when tying one rope to another using the rolling hitch. But, most progressing sailors don’t need it, and can go far in their sailing with the ‘standard’ tie before they actually need the variation on the theme.

What about the cleat hitch? It has one job, and nothing else does it. Very different. But, super important as most boats, power or sail, need it. This is the hitch to tie a line to a horn cleat, typically on both the boat and the dock. A horn cleat is double-ended, and the line is passed around in a particular way to lock it down but be able to untie it later. Almost all boats that tie up to docks or moorings use this type of cleat and the hitch that ties to it.

The social media videos for this are horrible, even if slightly entertaining. For the cleat hitch, they sometimes get parts of it right. But, they all get one part wrong . And, they’re usually about slick/trick methods of wrapping the line. The trend is to show the wrong way first, with a red X, and usually a finger wag, before showing the “right” way net with a green checkmark. Fine. But, get it right. 

The problem is that the overhwelming, vast majority of the world doesn’t understand this knot. Seems to me the problem lies with the very first contact the line makes with the cleat. If it’s at the wrong angle, the line later binds if one wraps the line completely around the base of the cleat. So, the world has decided that the beet thing to do is not wrap it completely around the base. 

Wrong. The full wrap quickly, and temporarily, locks the line down before anything else has to be done, and then the rest doesn’t matter much. Less fussy. But, first, one must start at the correct end of the cleat: the “far” end. Go to the “far end first.”

I came up with that a very long time ago. The world is large, so others might very well have before me. But, I came up with this by myself. Lately, I found it on social media and assumed someone copied my swagger. Maybe; maybe knot. (Sorry/not sorry.) But, whoever posted this was correct. It actually goes beyond arguing about which direction is correct: it can be a safety issue. If the line jams badly by going the wrong way around the cleat, and the line can’t be released when needed, one might be looking around for a rigging knife – and cutting a line under load is always dangerous.

What comes after the full wrap? Not much. In many cases, the full wrap temporarily holds the load. But, a couple of diagonal wraps around the horns is usually fine. Two wraps equal a figure 8, so people tend to call each pass a figure 8 – me included – but it’s a bit of a misnomer. Better to call each pass a ‘diagonal.’ Anyway, do the wraps, drop the line, and it’s not going nowhere no time soon.

Having said that, most people can’t sleep at night unless the whole job is finished with a twist called a locking hitch. The line is twisted into a loop so that when pulled over the final horn, it lays parallel to the previous wraps and snugs it up nicely. But, it can easily be released as well. The same effect is had by doing a final full wrap around the base of the cleat and pulling tight, but that’s not standard or taught at schools. Again, can you sleep at night?…

Many videos show people throwing loops at the cleat casually, with a smug attitude, from a standing position. That sometimes includes a locking hitch at the end. (And, sometimes they get it right.) Anyone can learn to do the wraps from a standing position, and they never need to be done as fast as in a video. Few people can toss a locking hitch into place. I can; I usually get it in the first 3 attempts, and often on the first try. But that’s from decades of practice (soooo many decades), and not caring how long it took to do so. I teach this to students as by default in cruising courses, and on occasion when there’s a minute to kill in learn-to-sail. Why?

Weird combo of fun and aggravating, so it’s motivating. But, more importantly, to illustrate a point: if you’re even trying to throw a locking hitch in the air, you can definitely just get the line around the cleat in a circle, followed by a figure eight, and drop it while you walk quickly toward the next line that needs attention and do the same. That’s usually a boat at a dock, and now it’s secure. This prevents having to squat or kneel and get your hands literally almost agains the cleat, risking getting a finger caught between a line and the cleat when it’s a tricky situation. So, the rodeo clown contest becomes a safety technique.

Then, there’s the bowline. It’s pronounced BOH-lin, like “we be bowlin.’” This is a non-slipping loop that most people ought to know and is standard in the repertoire for beginning sailors. It’s taught correctly, too. There are any number of variations on how to remember the steps. It’s even immortalized in “Jaws.” (Quint is teaching Brody how to tie it as things are quiet. As soon as Brody figures it out, and says, “Hey! I got it!”, he got it alright. Fish on! As in Jaws.)

Here’s a screenshot of an Insta clip from an ASA affiliated entity that does trips in tropical places. The knot is formed correctly, in the sense that the completed version is a proper bowline. We teach the steps differently, but the result is the same. Our gripe? The guy yanks the knot closed and never gets the slack out of the back, jack. That will open up on (pick yer pronoun) at some inconvenient and potentially dangerous point. Then, it goes on Credit Card Captains or The Qualified Captain (two of our favorite Insta accounts). Either way, it is the same price…expensive!

Another gripe about most of these YouTube clips: they show dangerous rope handling. People are using their fingers to wrap line that, in real life, is probably under a load or just about to be. Get your finger between the rope and a cleat, and you’ll break that finger. Even when fingers are required, they should be kept a safe distance away from hard stuff. it’s too easy to tweak a finger when handling rope.

“It’s called a line, not rope.”

Nope, dope! The material is in fact ROPE! Give it a purpose, and it’s generally a “line,” but in most cases, there’s a more specific name at that point, so why not cut right to the chase? Sheet, vang, spring, breast, topping lift, tweaker, Cunningham, down haul, etc, etc. Point is if we’re talking about how to handle a material, it’s okay to call it by its primary name.

Regardless of which knots you’re tying, keep these general tips in mind:

Watch those fingers! Don’t risk getting them caught between a tightening rope and a hard place (like a horn cleat). Whenever possible, have the line in your fist, aiming the heel of your hand at the hardware. Sometimes that’s not possible. But, at least, keep your fingers a respectable distance from the hard stuff. that can mean awkward, exaggerated motions when your fingers could have – oops, you just broke them. So, yeah; work out ways to keep clear.

Don’t worry about what the tail / bitter end of the line is doing if you’re not actually tying it to something. More time is wasted and tangles created that way than anything else.

Learn how to tie knots in the bight (belly) of the line, without dealing with the rest of it either at all or until the end.

Anything a clove hitch can do, a rolling hitch can do better. No, that’s not a general tip, but it should be one of your main takeaways from this Rant. Ditch that hitch and make the switch. Learn both variations of the rolling hitch.

Don’t “bunch” knots closed, or push them. We pull rope, not push it. (Same for handling sheets when trimming sails.) Exception: most if not all stopper knots. Those need bunching as well as pulling. NEVER bunch a bowline.

How you close a knot is as important as how you form it. Example: don’t yank knots closed. They all need a slow steady pull.

Don’t tie with excess slack, which often causes failure to form per above.

Who knows… maybe it’s time for us to do an occasional knot video for our YouTube Channel.

Link:

The Ashley Book of Knots (the Bible of bends, bights, bowlines, etc)