One of my all-time movie favorites is the scene toward the end of Jaws where Roy Schneider, playing the very un-nautical police chief, is sitting in the cockpit of Robert Shaw’s fishing boat, trying to learn how to tie a bowline…”The rabbit comes out of the hole…” he recites, while the theme music comes up and the shark swims closer and closer for its final attack.
In real life, as in the movies, you don’t want to wait until you – or your crew – are actually on the boat before you learn how to tie at least a few of the essential nautical knots. And it’s not hard; just a matter of practice. Clear instructions help, of course. Here are some of those, in a fun video, from Southern Boating magazine. You probably know most (if not all) of these already, but even so a easy refresher course never hurts. The a look:
