Yes you’ve guessed it we did some knots this week, but first the Scouts got to play a round of mini golf. This was a test for the Lunar golf game the Cub Scouts will be playing on Thursday.
Following on the Scouts took the items outside and painted them ready for Thursday, check out the Cub Scout post later in the week to see the results.
We then took a look at a few knots, some new to everyone so try and practice them at home if you can.
Prussic (Prusik) Hitch – this is a friction hitch which is often used to attach a loop of cord around a rope. It is also used to start the Prussic square lashing for synthetic rope.
Prussic (Prusik) Square lashing for synthetic rope – used for joining two spars, specifically with synthetic rope. We ended the lashing with either a reef knot, clove hitch or in one case both. A better option with synthetic rope would be to end with a Surgeons knot which we will look at in the future. The important thing to remember is to start the lashing right, so it pulls the Prussic hitch tight, with the hitch above the weight bearing spar and the final knot below. Keep the ropes neat as you go and keep pulling it tight, definitely easier to do when working in pairs. Remember also like the other square lashings the vertical wraps go to the inside while the horizontal go to the outside. This is done so that when the frapping turns are done it pulls everything in evenly and tightly.
Some very neat work there, especially given it was the first time both the above had been tried.
After this we very quickly had time to look at a Sheepshank, not to be confused with the sheet bend! This knot is generally not favoured anymore, particularly with modern synthetic ropes, as its can easily fail under load however it is one of the required knots for Explorer level and can still be used under none load situations.
As we ran out of time at this point everyone was asked to practice the Sheepshank at home and also practice, or learn, the Bowline and also lookup how to do the One handed Bowline.
