Goodbye to a pocketful of gizmos
Issue 55 : Jul/Aug 2007
Call us promiscuous. Jerry and I have been aboard an awful lot of sailboats since we started this magazine. Together, we’ve written three to five feature-boat articles each year for nearly 10 years. That’s 30 to 50 boats!
Every one of those boats has had sail ties on the main. Most of them have been little strips of webbing. Some are elastic. Some have a loop in the end. Some have a loop and a toggle. All are easy to use and simple in concept. If we’ve been aboard 30 to 50 boats, I’m willing to bet that we’ve also seen 30 to 50 sail-tie storage bins and cubby arrangements. When the ties are not in use on the sail, they’ve got to be stowed somewhere aboard . . . somewhere ready at hand when it’s time to drop the sail and head into the marina . . . somewhere they must be put without fail . . . a place known to all crew members because those ties are so incredibly important to the management of the sails. It has been my observation that no sailor can function efficiently without them.
If sail ties are a no-brainer sailboat accessory, why is it that we’ve never had sail ties aboard Mystic? She didn’t have them aboard when we bought her and we never felt the need to add them. Look at it this way: they’ve never been misplaced in the wrong cubby and we’ve never lost any overboard. We don’t have to imagine lowering our sail if we can’t find or have lost even a few of our precious sail ties.
Perfect length
I’m not sure why our arrangement is different, but by the time our mainsail is down, we’ve got a length of reefing line left over that just happens to be the perfect length (two to three fathoms actually) for frapping down the main with a simple and elegant tying scheme that, I presume, is left over from the days of yore. This line is always available right at the sail, so we don’t have to remember to grab a frapping line before lowering the sail. It’s quicker to loop this one line around the entire length of sail and tie it off with a half hitch than it is to tie (and later untie) each individual little tie.
There are dozens of other gadgets and gizmos that we, as sailors, have adopted to make something easier to do aboard. Most of these help us avoid making a knot. But they require that we go around with a pocketful of gizmos and gadgets instead. There are a number of clips and snaps used to attach fenders to lifelines, for example. But you can hang a fender just about as quickly with a simple clove hitch.
I’ve seen widgets that substitute for bowlines, the tautline hitch, and other valuable knots. I’ve seen hooks and clips for managing a made-up bundle of line so it can be hung in a locker or from a lifeline. These are convenient and easy to use. But it seems to me that the truly elegant solution is to use the knot itself and to skip the widget altogether. That way you don’t need a pocketful or a drawerful of things and you won’t be at a loss when you don’t have a widget immediately at hand or if you drop one overboard.
Call me old-fashioned. Call me traditional. I’ll choose the simple and elegant solution every time.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
