Does anyone really use a sheepshank?

[Mike Maddin]

I just got a small knot book - The Sailor's Pocket Book of Knots (R.S.Lee) - to add to my collection. In it is the ubiquitous Sheepshank, a knot I learned as a Boy Scout and have never seen a use for. As a rope shortener, it seems tidier just to tie off and coil the rest neatly.As a temporary bypass of a weak/frayed spot in a rope, surely a good bend wouldn't weaken the rope any more than the half hitches do, would it?

In short, does anyone ever use it in real life sailing?

Best wishes for the coming new year.

Mike

[mikeb]

Can't remember using it for sailing but I have used it many times when tying a load down and needed a way to get some 3:1 purchase to make the line tighter - when I lived on a farm it was a regular knot for helping to hold loads down - go through one of the sheepshank ends with the free end of the rope to get a bit more tight.

mb

[Mike Maddin]

It works like a trucker's hitch then, but with the advantage of taking up some extra slack?

[mikeb]

Correct - like a truckers hitch - one drawback to the Sheepshank is that the loops on the end are not always secure and we sometimes put a short piece of wood to hold the loop to the standing part of the line - when I looked at the truckers hitch there was one refference to an earlier version of the Truckers Hitch that would jam - the Sheepshank does not jam.

[Ian McColgin]

In the summer of '66 I mated on a charter fishing boat in Montauk where the sheepshank was most helpful both in use and in convincing my Captain that I was not useless. We berthed stern to the bulkhead between pilings and had a line stretching from each piling back to shore to act as combined bow lines and springs when we backed in. If we returned at high tide the lines were substantially below water and at other tides they captured seaweed. Whipping in a quick sheepshank on departure solved that. And it snaps loose right easily as well.

I've used this general approach over the years since.

Another nice place I use the sheepshank is on the beckets with which I lash the helm. I sail alone a lot and it's important that the boat sail herself while I attend to such necessaries as studying the chart, hitting the head, making coffee, and star gazing. Of course, sailing alone in a boat that will keep on sailing straight and true without an active hand on the helm makes the consequences of falling overboard a bit dire. I move about with jacklines and tether but still, there's nothing like a Hail Mary Line dragging astern for that last desperate grab. I make up the beckets with a sheepshank and the Hail Mary Line passes through each such that a good yank will free both, thus freeing the helm and allowing the boat to round up and give me a chance of crawling back up the line and swarming aboard.

G'luck

Ian