Decorative ("French") hitching on the tiller of my Ty

[pjust]

I did some decorative hitching on the tiller of my Typhoon, taken from Brian Toss's The Complete Rigger's Apprentice. Here's a pic:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqdj05oe1oohy ... g.JPG?dl=0

[ariasis]

Very nice.

[David Morton]

Nicely done!

[Steve Laume]

That is a very nice job.

I did the handle for the bilge pump mostly while crossing Cape Cod Bay. Good thing it was a slow sail because that kind of work takes a long time. I like the dark twine. What is it? Also when you were doing this how did you know how much twine you needed and how did you manage it? Did you do it with all one piece of line?

I really want to do the wheel on Raven, Steve.

[pjust]

I like the dark twine. What is it? Also when you were doing this how did you know how much twine you needed and how did you manage it? Did you do it with all one piece of line?

Thanks to all for the kind words.

I used tarred nylon marline, purchased at Hamilton Marine in Rockland, ME. It comes in a range of diameters and should be available at most marine supply stores.

I did a test patch of a few inches on the tiller and measured how many feet of line I'd used, then calculated how much I'd need to cover as much of the tiller as I wanted covered. I did use two single lengths of line, coiling the excess to pass under making the half hitches. The process was pretty tedious, I have to admit, but it was soothing in a meditative kind of way. I made mistakes a couple of times and had to go back to undo them. The hardest part was tightening on the turk's heads that cover the ends of the wraps; one of them still has a tendency to slip and I'm tempted to glue it in place, but I hate doing anything to Dolcetto that can't be undone.

I've since done a similar wrapping on my gaff to give it a better grip. There I didn't allow enough line at first and ended up adding a turk's head in the middle to cover the join and it actually looks kind of cool.

[Steve Laume]

It takes a lot of line. I suppose I will need to do my wheel in one spoke sections if/when the time comes. The dark line would work much better than white after my grimy hands are on it for a few years. A turks head at every spoke would work. Then I just need something bigger for the center line index.

If you want to make the turks head fast, varnish works very well for that sort of thing. If you want to keep the feel of the line where you handle the tiller just do the turks heads when you varnish the tiller.

On my boat hook, I just did a plain wrap with turks heads at both ends and Cetoled the entire thing. It looks great but I made it out of Ash which is strong enough to fend off the Queen Mary but pretty danged heavy, Steve.

[Skeep]

Peter, that's funny, "in a meditative way." I suppose back in the day, sailors found some solace in such mind-escaping work aboard their long ocean passages and the yelling and brutish leadership of their 1st Mates' aboard! Looks very nice!

[wsfanning]

Nice work Peter, very simple but decorative.