Page 40 - Frank Rosenow "Seagoing Knots"

The Reef Knot

In a reef knot, the first half knot is taken over and under, using the left-
hand end. The second half knot is also taken over and under, but with the
right-hand end as the lead or active part. In the granny, the left-hand end
remains the lead throughout, making a lopsided knot, while the reef knot

lies flat and symmetrical.
As the name suggests, it makes a snug job of tying two ends around a
wad of canvas. It was as such I first knew it, rolling up the bottom of the
sprit sail of the family skiff and tying together the reef lines sewn into the
sail with one end slipped.
Properly drawn up and shaped, it was reliable and, given the slipped end,
could be drawn off in a twinkle.
The same knot makes an excellent tie after folding a sail on the boom,
both in rope and soft webbing cut in suitable lengths for sail ties.
The knot has a binding quality that benefits from the moderate strain

and uniform alignment that holding a bundle entails. Using lines of differ¬
ent size is not permissible as there is a chance of the knot slipping to a
collapse.
The reef knot is not suitable for connecting two lines as it jams up badly
under strain and, worse, may collapse if subjected to a snag. The latter may
be guarded against by half hitching the ends around the standing parts but
then the knot becomes unwieldy.
This is a splendid knot only when used as a binding tie.

The Clove Hitch and Half Hitches

When Uncle Emil, or anyone else on the North Sea coast of my youth,
tied up his boat, he did it with a clove hitch followed by two half hitches
around the standing part. Like the passion for feathering the oars between
strokes, it amounted to a local religion.
Of late, it has waned in that you often see the clove hitch omitted and
the half hitches taken with a doubled bight—especially when a tie is made
to a ring and the doubling of the lines saves you from pulling all the cord¬
age through it.

A clove hitch is really of the same configuration as two half hitches only
the first is taken around a ring or bollard while the latter are usually taken
around the standing part of the rope or passed as two separate hitches—as
in the drawing of a scowed anchor on the peramba At Anapeae at Cabo de

SEAGOING KNOTS