Not even Sherlock Holmes would have solved this mystery
Issue 40 : Jan/Feb 2005
On the desk in my study there is a curious thin-bladed paper knife. As an item of intrigue it would not have disgraced the Baker Street breakfast table where Holmes might have directed Watson to apply his methods and deduce its mysterious provenance.
It has an ambience that might have been won, on the turn of a card, from a shellback whalerman in the dingy back room of a dockside beerhouse that time we wintered in Hamburg . . . or might have been found quivering in the mizzenmast one humid night while the Dacoit who had thrown it with near-deadly skill slipped soundlessly over the side and into the dark waters of the Pearl River . . .
In truth it began its long life as a Finnish filleting knife. In its youth it had a Scandinavian birchwood handle, long since succumbed to the ravages of time. Its slender tang is now dressed in a haft of a singular horn-like material that has brought out many a Watson amongst the dinner guests at the beach house but, so far at least, not a single Holmes.
With its fine grain and marble polish at the pommel, horn is a more favored hypothesis than timber, although it could be said to resemble polished olive, and some of the more exotic thorns have been candidates. Less exotic was the suggestion that I had made it out of some form of resin that I use on the boat. The fantastic ran to whalebone, the utterly chimerical to Narwhal tusk.
Easily the most macabre conjecture, and one that perhaps says something of how our friends view my shadowy art of crime writing, was that in some dark moment I had fashioned it from a human bone.
The fact is, it is a piece of seaweed.
Survival expert
We had been watching a television program in which an Australian survival expert showed viewers what to do if they are ever stranded on a seashore with a knife that has lost its handle. The knife has to be the type that has a narrow tang, the seaweed has to be kelp. The instruction was simply to chop off a likely length of kelp, shove the tang down into the center of the stalk, and let it dry. We happened to be walking on the beach some weeks later, after a storm that had thrown up some kelp, and we caught sight of a few robust-looking stalks.
Remembering our Australian survivalist’s advice, and the old filleting knife with the missing handle, we picked some up and took it home. It was not much of a task to chop off a piece from a stalk and hardly a challenge to push it steadily onto the tang. It was so quick and simple it was almost disappointing. I made one concession to art by utilizing a piece that included the nobbly end that attaches to the rock.
For slow drying, we used the old survivalist’s trick of propping it up next to the television. Senility did the rest. I simply forgot about it for a month or so. By that time the stalk had, so to speak, withered onto the tang with tenacity. All reasonable tests failed to budge it.
Shrunken to about half its original diameter, it was hardly a thing of beauty, admittedly, somewhat wrinkly and gnarled, but never let it be said that this old kettle would call a pot black. It was a serviceable handle.
Routine precaution
An archery friend dropped by for tea. Knowing that he was the sort of fellow who, when driving to the office, would, as a routine precaution, carry a flint and steel inside his longbow grip, I showed it to him. He was impressed, responding with a pivotal suggestion, which, I have to admit, had not for one second occurred to me: sand and polish it.
Setting-to with a creative enthusiasm, I found that the dry kelp was pretty strong. The root, where it widened into what would become the pommel, carved cleanly with a utility knife to produce a waxy surface, while the main length of the handle could be sanded easily by hand, using medium and fine paper.
I guessed that sealing it against water ingress would be vital, so I diluted some yacht varnish with thinner, more thinner than varnish, and applied it to the kelp, much as we used to do on old fishing rods by rubbing it in hard with the finger. This time, however, knowing a little more about toxins and not wanting my next sandwich to be imbued with the Great White Spirit, I deferred to modern practice and used a leather pad and gloves. When that was dry I applied a simple polish, cooked up a couple of years previously when I was restoring an antique German guitar. The principal ingredient was beeswax. I rubbed it to a fine sheen by hand.
The result was quite elegant and delightfully mysterious. I cannot absolutely vouch for its strength or longevity, but a few months have gone by and so far, so good. I am moved to try the idea on other things: a spike, a pencil, a comb for a mermaid. So, if your tang has lost its grip, if you are storm-bound in some anchorage where there is a beach and you want to keep perhaps a younger crew member occupied, then kelp may be at hand in the quest for the seaweed Excalibur . . . an hour to find it, a minute to fit it, and six spellbinding weeks watching it wither.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
