I was sailing on the Monterey Bay this afternoon. The first half hour out on the water, the wind was just dead. We were tossed about by the waves, pulled out by the tides, and basically sat about waiting for some wind. I decided to practice my knots on the end of the jib sheet that I was supposed to be tending, if there had been any wind to fill it. Since someone had just refreshed my memory of the bowline, I started with it.
“Let’s see… the bunny comes out of the hole, around the tree and back down the hole…” After a couple of false starts, I pulled the ropes taut and had a real, solid bowline! Cool! I started to turn to my boatmate and show off my accomplishment. In that very second, I had a clean image of Chief Brodie successfully tying his first bowline and showing it to Quint and Hooper just as the boat is attacked by the shark.
I decided to keep my rope trick to myself.