The best book on knots I have found is "The Marlinspike Sailor" by Hervey Garrett Smith. It has great drawings, wonderful stories about how the knots were used, and a broad range of knots and rope techniques from simple and useful to complex, beautiful and still useful. It also has articles on how to build simple windvanes and bilgepumps, as well as the great stuff on knots and lines. This book taught me how to splice, and introduced me to fancy knotting when I was 14. >From there, I moved on to "Ashley's Book of Knots". Again, lots of good information on how to tie and use the knots, and fun stories and legends on the use of knots and lines from the days of the square rigger. But Ashley is a bit intimidating to the new user, Smith's book is a better introduction. Brion Toss's books can't be beaten for a more modern view of marlinspike seamanship. It is remarkable that although he deals with modern fibres that hadn't even been invented in Ashley's day, most of the knots and techniques are the same, or are logical extensions of old techniques applied to the new materials. A bosun on a ship of the 1850's would get up to speed pretty quickly if dropped into a modern rigging yard. Believe it or not, there have been a few new knots invented in the last 50 or so years, and Brion shows how to tie and use them. His "Strait bend" is one of the most useful knots I know. Rob. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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