The time to hitting the boats again is getting nearer and nearer and this will actually be one of the first time that I will be heading out of the boat myself. That means, you have no idea what kind of weather it will be. Which also can mean that when you have tie your boat somewhere to a pole or to a wall, that it has to be tight and unable to move.
Those kinds of things are the basics of boating, but also often not the things that you first worry about. you want to be able to control the boat, or in my situation be in control of the sails. And then the stuff like putting the lines decent feels like it is secundair.
But the reality is that this more than important, and you have to be able to do this all super fast as well.
Tying the Bowline
Wikipedia
This to me is one of the most hated lines when being on a boat to make when you start tying knots. I am very used to throwing knots from my surgical perspective, so for me it is easy to make a sliding knot or a surgical which never should come loose again. But that is not what you want for a bowline
And I know there are all kinds of helping little rhymes like "Up through the rabbit hole, round the big tree; down through the rabbit hole and off goes he." (I am not making this up, for real)
Sure I can remember this little rhyme...But what exactly does it mean and what do you have to do? That remains a mystery so this stuff aint helping at all!
Luckily Youtube is there to guide you in darker days
Yes, the good old youtube and tiktok does the trick for these kinds of things. I went to the outdoor shop and got me a sailing line to actually practise with for at home. Sure, some wool or another tie would also work. But the thing with the boating lines is that the lines are smooth and they can easily slip but they are also firm which makes them not easy in bending.
So I used this initial little movie to see how the bowline should be laid out. Already the initial image (not even the movie) is the one that really helps to see how the line eventually should end up.
Youtube
But what an image does not show is one how and in which direction you should eventually put in the lines. As in, if you pull on the wrong line, the knot could still slip. And this bowline movie and technique was not sticking at all in my brain.
That is the deal with learning stuff, people learn in different ways and you have to find a way that suits your way of thinking otherwise it will turn out into nothing.
Then I found this second movie for tying a bowline. And with just one think different in makes a different loop, all of a sudden this one was actually sticking in the brain
It made sense in a blink of an eye and all of a sudden it didn't seem so difficult anymore.
Youtube
Maybe that is the deal with learning stuff and also which the one way of explaining something doesn't always suit the other person. It is as speaking a different language to explain the same thing. This second movie was an eye opener and now this line is super easy.
But the first one was still like I was looking at images in a big which were not sticking in the brain. I am glad I looked further and found a proper one!
The first steps into boating are there again. Every day getting something in and eventually it will all make sense.
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That was the first knot I've learned in my diving course, somehow it stuck until now 😁
If you go sailing or motor boating, you will always be glad when you have used the bowline. It holds firmly and can be released again and again without any problems, even after heavy use. That's what an experienced sailor will tell you. It's worth practising and using it, but it's not easy at first.
Always keep a handful of water under the keel!