Seamanship

By lex, on January 1st, 2012

That’s something we used to teach sailors, back when learning how to be a mariner was more important than the things they are being taught today.

There are only so many useful hours in a day. You can either learn how to tie a knot, or your can be indoctrinated on the benefits of diversity, etc.

I was an eagle scout, and my father had been in the merchant marine. He taught me how to tie a bowline one-handed by the time I was 12. A few years later, when I was a midshipman, I tied a messenger line around a stanchion aboard a Boat School yard patrol craft with a clove hitch. A grizzled bosun’s mate first class looked at my work, and said weightily to no one in particular, “That’s a good knot.” I was inordinately proud of myself, as such praise was hard to come by. That was back in 1980 or so.

To paraphrase Rummie, “You go to war with the Navy you have, not the one you wish you had.”