Page 173 - Adlard Coles "The Knot Bible"

Pole hitch

Long before we had nails, screws and shackles, we had rope lashings. Once
a key part of the riggers’ armoury, lashings gradually gave way to

mechanical fastenings and fittings. Now they are making a comeback,
thanks to an unlikely saviour. The pole hitch is one of the simplest lashings.
Use it to carry poles and spars, or to lash them to the rail or car roof rack.

There’s something very primitive
KNOT SCORE
about lashings. They put us in mind
of earlier societies, when basic Strength
fastenings had yet to be invented, Security
and the only way you could hold Diffi culty Tying
things together was to lash them. Diffi culty Untying
The Kon-Tiki proved that lashings Usefulness
could be used to build a sea-going
vessel – even if it was just a 14m (45ft) aren’t any hardware stores in the 1 Form a pair of bights in the

glorified raft. Lashings were used not middle of the Southern Ocean, so if standing part of the line.
only to hold the hull logs together, you lose your rig you have to make
but also the mast, rudder, cabin, and do with what you’ve got. And what
even the bamboo sail. In fact, the most boats have got is plenty of rope
whole vessel was held together with to turn into lashings.
hemp lashings and little else. More recently, however, the
At about the same time that rafts durability of modern cordage has
such as the Kon-Tiki were being built brought lashings back into vogue.
in the Pacific, the Vikings were Catamaran designer James Wharram

building their exquisite longships. has long used a fi gure-eight lashing

They mostly fastened the vessels’ instead of metal fittings to hang
strakes with iron spikes, but rudders. Now the rest of the
sometimes used lashings instead. boatbuilding world is catching onto

Lashings were widely used on the benefits of ‘soft’ fi ttings, and
sailing craft right up until the end of high-modulus rope lashings are
the 19th century, when the yards of increasingly being used in place of
mighty ships such as the Cutty Sark shackles and other metal fastenings.
were held to the mast using parrel Properly made, these attachments
lashings. The advent of stronger and are not only stronger than their metal
longer-lasting metal fi ttings and counterparts but cause less wear and
fastenings, however, meant that they tear to both the boat and its crew. A
gradually became outmoded and whipping genoa sheet is less likely to
were reduced to more menial jobs – injure the foredeck crew if it’s fi tted
such as rigging up a temporary with a ‘soft shackle’ (page 280) instead
awning or attaching a lifering of a conventional metal one.
bracket to the railings. So, far from being a primitive
Only in extreme circumstances, method of attachment, the humble
such as setting up a jury rig after lashing is coming into its own again
dismasting or making a temporary at the very cutting edge of sailboat
tiller or rudder, did lashings technology. Now, who would have
suddenly play a rather important predicted that?
and often life-saving role. There

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