Page 156 - Peter Randall "The Craft of the Knot.."

under foot when loose, especially on boats.
You can coil the rope by reaching for each new length with the right

hand and adding it to the coil held in the left hand. Stiffer or more
tightly laid rope will have more of a tendency to twist into a figure-eight
shape than looser rope will. To counteract this tendency, try giving the
rope a right-hand twist with each turn of the coil. As you reach out your
right hand and grip the rope with your palm away from you, twist your

hand and the rope as if you were turning a screwdriver to tighten a
screw. Even if you’re left-handed, you should still coil them in a
clockwise direction because most three-stranded ropes are twisted in a
right-handed direction.

If the rope is stiff enough to make even figure eights, then skip the
twists and store it as a bundle of that shape. Starting with the first end
hanging down lower than the bottom of the coil will help keep it from
getting caught in the turns, which can cause the rope to tangle as you
uncoil it.

As you have seen in many cases throughout this book, you don’t
always need the end of a rope in order to make a knot. This is also the
case when tying the finishing knot on the coils shown in this chapter. It
may be that you need to coil up rope that is in service, and the ends are

tied to something, as is often the case on a sailboat. In the case of the
Gasket Coil, you can start wrapping from the one free end and then
make the final knot “in the bight.” You can do this with the Figure-of-
Eight Coil, also illustrated in this chapter. Many other knots can be made
to secure a coil, and people often make up their own way of finishing the

coil with the knot of their choice.
Large coils are sometimes bound with several small cords, called
“stops,” at intervals around the coil. When a rope is stored on a spool,
the spool should turn as rope is being taken from it at a 90-degree angle

from the turning axis of the spool. If the spool is laid on end with the
rope pulled up over one end, each turn will result in a twist in the rope,
which can result in kinks. When a coil is bound in the middle as in the
case of the Gasket Coil, it is sometimes called a “hank.”

METHODS OF PREVENTING FRAYING