Transferable Landlubber Skills
Women will ask for help, and nobody can untangle lines like a knitter. By Catherine Dook
Many little-esteemed skills of
landlubber ladies are easily transferred to boat use. Now, most people wouldn’t think a lifelong knitter passionate about her craft would have much to offer onboard a boat, but tis truth, nobody handles lines like someone who can untangle a half-knit sock that the cat’s attacked. She can undo a veritable Gordian knot of polypropylene mess that would send a man into a state of despair, and laugh out loud while she’s doing it, and then make soup for lunch afterwards with two steady hands. She can fasten a line to a cleat with a bowline knot while the vessel is approaching a fuel dock at two knots and the reverse won’t stop the hull. Her advice is worth listening to when
she says, “Honey, that dinghy bridle won’t hold.” In fact, there are many occasions when she sweeps aside the nearest man and says, “Stand back! I am a knitter.” Campfire building is another
surprisingly transferable skill. Oh, not the careful laying of the pine boughs. That would only be any good if you were to use the fire axe to break the cabins into splinters and light signal fires on the deck. I mean the general pyrotechnic skill of slinging around a box of matches and getting results. The skillful flame-lighter can start an oven when the weather is bad, get heat out of a propane furnace when her fingers are numb with cold, and light a candelabra full of candles after the power’s gone
out and the main saloon is as dark as the inside of a locker in winter. “Give me those matches,” she cries, thrusting aside the captain. “I can light fires.” A further skill is that of asking for
help. There is a surprising percentage of the human population unable to perform this skill – 50 in fact. My friend Endis, a Melanesian woman from the island of Efate, swore to me that men from Vanuatu don’t ask for directions either. When the captain is lost, someone must flag a passing vessel and ask where Telegraph Harbour is. When the boat sinks, someone must make the Mayday call. When the vessel docks at 90° from the landing and eight feet out, someone must ask the person standing dockside if he will catch a line and pull on it. “Let me,” she cries. “I will ask.” Thus it is that one day John and I
were sitting in the main saloon reading novels and eating dusty-dry gingersnap cookies, when suddenly John shut his novel with a sigh. “I’m bored,” he said. It was as if his words had turned off the lights. Our startled faces peered palely at each other in the main saloon, and before we could recover from the shock of it, we heard a withering sigh from
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