Winter is a good time for...

Winter is, among other things, a time to be an idler, not a lazy good for nothing in the common use of the word, but rather a non watch stander in the traditional, nautical sense. Idlers included the ship's carpenter and sail maker, among others and I trust that they managed to keep quite busy.

Among my idle activities, working (i.e., "playing") with rope may well top the list. Actually, working with rope involves its own list as there are lots of ways for me to play (i.e., "work"). Okay, here are just a few:

Traditional whipping: Yes, you can buy the dippy gooey stuff at West Marine. You can wrap with electrical tape. You can melt the strands of synthetics (is there any other kind?). But none of that goes well with single malt Scotch and a warm fire.

Line hangers: Yes, you can buy line hangers as West Marine. (There seems to be a theme here.) But with some 1/4" three strand you can hang your lines for free. The right length of line, a small eye splice in one end, a stopper knot in the other (that just fits through the eye), attach to a lifeline with a larks head and you're ready to go.

Fender hangers: Yes, they sell these at the marine stores (I'm not just picking on WM). They do everything a hitch will do and less. Just be sure your fenders have whips that are long enough to work with.

Fender whips: Speaking of fender whips, you can buy them but why would you? These are easily made from otherwise frayed and worn out dock lines and the like.

Dock lines: The best (i.e., free) dock lines are made by recycling discarded very long dock lines and reworking them into somewhat less very long dock lines. Sometimes you need to cut off and then replace an eye but often you just cut off a frayed end and add a whipping. (See "traditional whipping," above)

There's more but you get the idea. The above requires only modest skill, perhaps a bit of dumpster diving and (except for the single malt, some whipping twine and a sail needle) it's all free.