knot your anchor
knot your anchor
Knot your anchor. A great outdoor adventure tool for your little sailor. Start out weaving to learn the ropes. Graduate into cleats, figure eights, bowlines, and anchor hitches. Challenge yourself and your children to learn a new skill. Excellent for enhancing fine motor skills. Measures 4" x 2.5" x 0.25" and comes with 21 inches of cord and an essential knot guide.
ages 5+
KNOT YOUR ANCHOR: THE ESSENTIAL KNOTS
Cleat hitch
This type of knot is designed especially for one purpose, and I bet you can guess what that is. If you said, “Making the line fast to a cleat,” you were correct. As you might imagine, this is used all the time on a sailboat, whether you’re docking, towing a dinghy, or rigging a preventer. Knowing how to do it will make you a much handier sailing companion!
Round turn and two half hitches
This knot is for those times when you need to tie something up and make sure it stays tied up! It takes a bit more time and effort than the clove hitch, but it will hold much better. It is also one of the few knots that can be tied or untied with tension on the line. It doesn’t jam or slip. It can secure a mooring line to the post or ring, or better yet, a hammock to a tree.
Bowline (pronounced bo-lin)
The bowline is the king of sailing knots. It has been in use by sailors continuously for at least 500 years. Simply put, the bowline is a way of turning the end of your line into a loop. Why is this useful? You can tie it around a post or other fixed object to make the line fast, or on smaller boats it is used fasten the halyard to the sail. It can also be used to tie two lines together. It has a number of practical uses as well, such as hanging a hammock. Under pressure the bowline tightens, so it won’t give way. However, note that it’s impossible to untie while bearing a load!
Figure 8
The Figure-8 knot is an essential stopper knot. Unlike the overhand loop, it won’t bind up no matter how much strain it comes under. That means it will always be easy to untie. It is used primarily to stop a line from running.
Clove hitch
A clove hitch has the advantage of being very quick to tie and untie, but it doesn’t hold nearly as well as the bowline. On sailboats, one of its most common uses is hanging the fenders over the side as you come in to dock.
Square knot (reef knot)
A quick and easy knot for temporarily joining two ropes together. It got the name of reef knot from the old days of tall ship sailing, when it was used to “reef” the sail. Back then the sailors would have to climb the rigging, go out on the yards, and actually reduce the sail by hand, and this was the knot they used. Not many of us still sail that way today, but this knot still has its uses! It’s easy and quick to tie when safety and stability are not critical, such as securing a sail cover.
