Dip the rope

[Boz]

Perhaps he was thinking 'There's only one Rope on a boat and this is not it'

 

[JVL]

The idiot to the right has effectively blocked the other two lines.

Rule no1 securing alongside never tie off always a loop if it's a ring through and back if a post dip and drop same for cleats ( you won't like it when someone cuts it and in some parts of the world they do!)

 

[JVL]

Good man, cigars to JVL and PRV.

Monte Christo #4 please ( oh if you insist I'll take the box I'll pm my address ha ha)

 

[VicS]

OK. For the sort yourself out and tidy it up later brigade, what happened here?
View attachment 52097

One, on the left with the blue warp, appears to stupidly have a spliced loop.

The one in the centre with the red flecked warp appears to have "dipped the rope" or was the first one there.

The one on the right is the only one who really knows how to share that type of open base cleat properly (except that I'm not sure about the knot), but he should have tied it round the "leg" below the other two.

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

( you won't like it when someone cuts it and in some parts of the world they do!)

I probably wouldn't cut it but I'd be sorely tempted to soak his bowline with superglue - if I was not in a hurry to leave!

 

[Hadenough]

One, on the left with the blue warp, appears to stupidly have a spliced loop.

The one in the centre with the red flecked warp appears to have "dipped the rope" or was the first one there.

The one on the right is the only one who really knows how to share that type of open base cleat properly (except that I'm not sure about the knot), but he should have tied it round the "leg" below the other two.

Absolute rubbish! If the one on the right had made his loop first and "dipped the rope" everyone else could release their ropes without having to deal with the others. I rest my case. And by the way, how do you untie a bowline under tension to release the other two properly laid warps?

 

[doug748]

I'd not heard the expression "dip the rope" before.

No.

I thought it sounded vaguely obscene. Dipping the Wick, I'm thinking of

 

[prv]

Rule no1 securing alongside never tie off always a loop if it's a ring through and back if a post dip and drop same for cleats ( you won't like it when someone cuts it and in some parts of the world they do!)

Making a bowline round one leg of the cleat is fine, as long as you come at it from below everyone else so that you're not tying anyone else down. Indeed on a busy cleat it's preferable, because you can always undo your bowline and escape whatever any other idiot does on top (including a huge bird's nest of figure-8s over three other boats like the angling numpty rafted against us the other week).

Pete

 

[cliff]

Above is what I first thought you meant by the thread title. Never, in 50+ years of "boating", have I heard of "dipping the rope" to mean anything else.

 

[l'escargot]

Never heard the expression and would have thought you were a bit daft issuing unclear instructions, so would have just threaded the rope up through the other eyes, dropped it over a cleat and said "I'll leave you to sort it out how you like" and wandered off to do something else...

 

[ronsurf]

Id have just asked him to drop it on the cleat.............and rearranged it later.

+1

 

[Fantasie 19]

Got me there?

"Dip".... and for the record, with regard to the original question, I wouldn't have known what you were on about either...

 

[colind3782]

It seems that the majority on here, myself included, wouldn't know what you're talking about with an arcane phrase like "dip the rope" and I'm not sure why you would expect any normal person to understand a phrase which seems to be only common to a select few. Drop it over the cleat and re-adjust to your personal satisfaction later.

 

[Skylark]

It seems that the majority on here, myself included, wouldn't know what you're talking about with an arcane phrase like "dip the rope" and I'm not sure why you would expect any normal person to understand a phrase which seems to be only common to a select few. Drop it over the cleat and re-adjust to your personal satisfaction later.

+1.

Google doesn't seem to find "dip the rope". I'll look in my companion of the sea when I get home.

In answer to the OP. Especially if I was short handed, I'd thank the guy for his help. Personally, I wouldn't care if Horatio Nelson took my lines, it's my boat and I'm going to tie it up to my own satisfaction once I've had a cup of tea (or maybe a beer), after arrival.

 

[alanch]

Dipping a mooring line, the passing of the eye of the rope through the eye of an already secured rope, is a standard practice for merchant vessels, so that either vessel can be let go anytime. Competent mooring gangs across the world use it, or get shouted at if they don't.

 

[Mariner69]

To be pedantic I seem to recall there are only three ropes on a ship; the boat rope, manrope or bell rope, all the rest are 'lines'. The term also seems to be 'dip the eye'.

Spliced mooring lines at one end and plain sailmaker's whipping at the other are my approach to the lines. Eyes over the bollard or cleat on arrival and sort things out later at your leisure.

 

[Tony Cross]

I got off to take the lines of a catamaran coming in next door in Chania (Crete) a few years back. As they neared they quay I smiled a called to the lady on the front (do cats have bows?) and said "can I take your lines for you?". She replied in very clipped Home Counties English, "and do you know what you're going to do with them?". It took me back a bit at first but it was a very reasonable question!

 

[Poignard]

What would you have done?

I'd have hoped swmbo hadn't heard me, because she'd have probably told me not to talk like a pompous prat.

 

[lpdsn]

Ok a test. Came alongside today and a very kind man got of his saily boat and took my bow line (made off in a loop). The only cleat available already had a looped rope over it so I asked him to "dip the rope". He dangled it in the water and then dropped it over the cleat on top of the exiting rope! What would you have done?

So let me get this straight, you contrived a situation where you could embarrass 'a very kind man' using a obscure term for what seems to be merely your own pedantic gratification.

"dip the rope" is not a commonly used term. In fact, just to make sure I looked it up in a 1943 Admiralty handbook that I was given a few years ago, and despite illustrating very well how it is done with a hawser, their Lordships made no mention of the term "dip the rope". The way they put it is that the heaving line is stopped to the crown of the eye so the hawser can be pulled up through the eye of the other ship's hawser.

When someone takes your lines it is a courtesy that is not to be abused. Dropping it over a cleat and leaving you to tidy it up the way you want is more than sufficient. Beware he might decide it's time to go below and put the kettle on the next time he sees you coming it.

I might have done what you wanted if you'd been able to explain it in appropriate nautical language. Or I might have just dropped it over the cleat and left you to it. Or if you'd really wound me up I'd have just thrown your line back and told you to do it yourself.

By the way, I would really only use the technique for bollards or bitts. For a cleat I'd tie a round turn and a bowline (or just a bowline if crowded) around the leg of the cleat below everyone else's lines. That way I have control regardless of what others do (whether through ignorance or chagrin after having previously been ridiculed on the internet).

 

[Skylark]

Just checked my copy of The Oxford Companion to Ships and The Sea and it makes no reference to "dip the rope".