What is a Rigging Knife

I  have had many pocket knives in my life but the two I like best are my Swiss Army Knife and my Rigging Knife.  The Swiss Army Knife because of all the gadgets, but the one I use the most is my Rigging Knife.

                                                               A Basic Rigging Knife 

It is simple, functional, not bulky in my pocket and cheap enough that if I lose it overboard I do not have a heart attack.  The Knife can open packages, cut rope or fishing line, cut bate, strip insulation from wire...all the things you use a knife for.  It also has a Marlin Spike and it is used for getting tight knots undone, poking holes in thing, chipping up ice, and all sorts of things a sharp pointy object is needed for.  The last tool on it is a Shackle Key. Shackles on a boat with screw in pins can be a bitch to unscrew.  A shackle key lets you unscrew it with out having to get pliers.  It also has other uses ( I can open a beer bottle  8-) with it.). My Swiss army knife will not open a shackle ( but it will open a beer ).

Crocs strap line tension-er

Ever need to tie something snug to something but still have it able to move a little and return to its position? I ran in to this when I was working at our dock. My first thought was a bungee cord, but they soon stretch out and do not do the job for long.  What I came up with was to use the strap from a pair of plastic / rubber crocs shoes.

I removed the heel strap off an old pair of crocs I throwing out; the strap is attached to the shoe with plastic rivets and is easy to remove. There is a hole at each end of the strap where the rivet went through the strap. I threaded a line through the hole on one end, pulled the line through, then wrapped the line around the strap a number of turns and then back through the hole at the other end of the strap.

When you use the line to tie something up you can snug it so it is tight, but when tension is put on it the strap wrapped by the cord stretches and lengthens like a spring. This set up will stretch 3” to 4” and returns to the original position.

You can do the same thing with a rubber strap that you can get to hold down tarps and things. These would last longer. The crocs strap was available and cheap, and I could recycle. 8-)

 A quick and easy way to make a self tensioning line using a recycled shoe strap,and it is cheap.

Keeping lines on your boat untangled

An easy way to keep a boat line from getting in the way and untangled is to coil them and then snug them to a rail on your boat. This gets rid of a tripping hazard and prevents them from getting knotted up. It just makes for a safer day on the water.

First coil the line up and then lay it over a rail on your boat, like the black line in the photo. Then reach through the loops and under the rail on one side and grab the loops on the other side of the rail and pull that side through.  This snugs the coil of rope on to the rail like the white line is. When it is snug, it will say out of the way and stay untangled.

To remove the line, just grab the horizontal section of the coil of line next to the rail and the line comes off the rail, still coiled and untangled. I did not snug up the white line so you could see how it pulls up on the rail and also see the section of line you grab to remove it.

I use this method to keep the dock lines on the boat, untangled and easy to get at. One end stays on the boat cleat and the other end being coiled is easy to grab and or throw.