Page 322 - The Ashley Book of Knots

CHAPTER 25: HOOKS, BECKETS, AND

TOGGLES

•

-_._---/""

A Blackwall hitch is used with a lanyard in setting up rigging, where

the end of your lanyard is not long enough to form a catspaw; but a

strap and toggle is preferable to both.

WITHAM N. BRADY: The Kedge Anchor, 1841

•
•

• •

A good HOOK HITCH should tie simply and spill the instant it is

removed from the hook, without requiring any loosening.

For the bight of a slings, a DOUBLE CAT'S-PAW leaves nothing to be

desired. But none of the well-known SINGLE HITCHES are wholly

trustworthy. The BLACKWALL HITCH fills some of the requirements •
•

but is prone to slip. The BILL HITCH is recommended by the British

Admiralty Manual of Seamanship but is not safe in small rope if

tied to a large hook. The MARLINGSPIKE HITCH appears to be about

the best of the lot.

In an attem t to find a satisfactory SINGLE HOOK HITCH, '#< 1886

was evolved. his appears to have certain advantages over the others.

It ties and casts off easily and holds well when fast to a large hook.

It should not be tied, however, in a large rope that overflows the

hook.

A becket may be anyone of a number of small objects to which

ropes are secured. The thimble on a block to which the standing end

of the fall is spliced, the hook of the block itself, or the eye in a

pendant to which the block is hooked are, all three of them, beckets.

Any EYE SPLICE is a becket, and a BECKET HITCH is the knot that NECK. .-

commonly is made fast to an EYE SPLICE. The rope handle of a sea

chest is also called a becket.

Any short rope that is employed for securing objects on shipboard .MOUTH

is termed a becket, provided it has an eye in one end. Generally it

has a KNOB KNOT or toggle in the other end, to button into the eye.

(See '#< 679.)

[ 313 ]