A knife to hand at all times?

I have a knife with shackle key on a lanyard in one pocket and a load of lengths of string in the other.
I have used all three…
 
With a friend on his boat (steel, maybe 30 tons) on the canal. Descending in a lock, a line got jammed and couldn’t be paid out. Alarming creaking, boat listing rapidly, crowd watching. I had my little folding Doug Gill rescue knife and we cut the line, quite a big splash as the boat dropped back down. I really wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t cut that line
 
Gixer said:
I have a knife with shackle key on a lanyard in one pocket and a load of lengths of string in the other.
I have used all three…
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I have or had one of these.

Cost me a lot at £20 25 years ago (now over £50!)

Captain Charles Currey Ltd

Had a good shackle key and the straight blade was easy to keep honed.

Used shackle key a lot on board and the knife and lock-spike at home for splicing more often than on the boat.
 
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MontyMariner said:
I've carried a pocket knife since I was a boy scout, I feel lost without it. It gets used several times a day, opening boxes, cutting tape, scraping (back edge), scoring wood, cutting tie wraps, sometimes even cutting rope!
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As a scout we were allowed to carry sheath knives (days long since gone and banned). It was part of our uniform.

Used to use it at Summer camps every day for flipping bacon and rope work and stripping silver birch bark.

No one would ever consider it as a weapon in those days or in the Scout Group.

We had long staves that we ‘fought’ (played with) Robin Hood and Little John fashion; dangerous things to knuckles and heads!
 
Cerebus said:
As a scout we were allowed to carry sheath knives (days long since gone and banned). It was part of our uniform.

Used to use it at Summer camps every day for flipping bacon and rope work and stripping silver birch bark.

No one would ever consider it as a weapon in those days or in the Scout Group.

We had long staves that we ‘fought’ (played with) Robin Hood and Little John fashion; dangerous things to knuckles and heads!
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Indeed. As a 10 year old in the 1960s/early 70s I and all my pals all carried knives. Some a penknife on a chain, some a sheath knife on a belt. Flicknives even. We knew how to sharpen them, oil and look after them. Nothing was thought of it. How we have gone backwards, how trust and personal responsibility has evaporated. Tragic really.
 
Long ago it was a kind of Rite of Passage for a youngster after his first trip or two at sea to make a belt for his deck knife. I still have my effort as a 16 year old second trip Deck Boy. I still carry it when onboard, in fact I used it today making a new Topping Lift and splicing in a couple of Thimbles.



The sheath is a piece of old canvas fire hose and the knife is a Green River copy, bought in my first foreign port at the Fishermens Cooperative in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, 65 years ago... 😊
 
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thinwater said:
There is one at the mast, near the winches, in the tool box, and obviously, in the galley. For me, that is safer than having to transfer it every time I change clothes. Each one has a long lanyard, is very easy to find, and very hard to lose. If someone asks, "blue lanyard, inside the companionway on the right."

No need for the Swiss army or multitool fiddlyness; there is a small tool kit in the same companionway location. Much better.
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I think this is the answer to my "question".

Of course, I always had this stuff to hand. Admittedly not as convenient as my pocket but it was still 30 seconds away.
 
I have only once in may years needed a knife to cut a line. A mooring line around a post got jammed. Very embarrassing beinng outside club verandah on opening day. Boast swung with wind behind it and stern still attached. I did fit a knife inside stern locker lid to meet racing requirements. It is still there. A supposed yachting knife but a bit rusty and blunt. A prize. No I have never bought a knife. I do have many in the shed mostly found on the bottom at a jetty where kids like to fish.
Favorite knife is a diving knife where I have cut off the point to make a chisel. Great on barnacles. But that lives at home.
I use bypass secateurs in the garden and find them best for cutting rope. But really never cut a rope on the boat if I can help it.
Certainly it is not a good idea (against the law) to carry a knife in public not that I look a danger at 79yo ol'will
 
Depends how old you are but school children needed knives to sharpen their quills. :)

I'm a bit younger but do recall, 1st day in infant school so aged 5, just, - they were having a clear out .... there was a pile of slates in the school yard, each neatly surrounded by a sort of picture frame. Not for roofing but to write on.

Jonathan
 
Aiport security got my Opinel on the way back to Taiwan. Had it for decades. Very annoyed with myself but a bit of stress redeploying TWGFs ridiculous excess baggage and I forgot to transfer it
 
I don’t carry a knife but we have a range of knives on board. I use a Stanley knife if I’m doing splicing or rope work. It’s in the toolkit in a locker. There’s a seaman’s knife in the locker above the chart table.

I suppose if we wanted a knife in an emergency the (very sharp) bread knife is tucked behind some storage containers in the galley that’s close to the companionway but in fifty years of sailing I can’t ever remember needing a knife so urgently that I didn’t have time to go and fetch one. I certainly don’t carry one on my person all the time.

What are these emergency situations that I’ve miraculous avoided?

PS The examiner asking to see your knife was out of order. Although ‘seamanship’ is assessed in the YM scheme, nowhere in the syllabus does it specify carrying a knife.
 
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Here on the broads, my little keelboat, has a multitool next to the seat, I've used the knife and several other items in it many times. Must sharpen the blades sometime.
The motor boat apart from the kitchen stuff , has a Stanley knife in the tool box.

Our sailing club rescue boats all carry a knife and the on board first aid kits have scissors.

I too carried a sheath knife in the Scouts, we sharpened our own pen knives at school, our first project in metalwork was making a knife, which used a razor blade as the sharp edge, still got that somewhere, it must be 56 years old...
 
Mark-1 said:
Weirdly, in decades I have no recollection of needing a knife when sailing and never carried one. Occasionally I'd fetch a kitchen knife or use a Gerber tool I keep below.

About a year ago I started to carry a combined knife, flat screwdriver, marlin spike and shackle key. Since then I seem to use it all the time.

Not sure what to conclude from that.
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I was going to say similar - in particular, I was surprised by how many times the spike comes in useful when you always have it right to hand.
 
Cerebus said:
Knives are tools in my h. o.

My boat has them dotted around.

On a new (to me boat) I started engine and cast off from busy mooring field only to find I had not unlashed the tiller.

I had used fiddly paracord. A nearby knife saved me ramming the boats all around.

An examiner once asked me to show him my knife. He grilled me about many things in fact; a stressful examination.
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Was that the police examiner after you forgot to leave it on the boat?
 
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