Dip the rope

[Shakemeister]

All we're talking about is nautical terminology. It's the language of English speaking seafarers.

We use port and starboard without a second thought. Forrard and astern. Beam reach, broad reach, close hauled. Sheets, halliards, warps, whatever.

Why should 'dipping the eye' be singled out as some archaic grotty yotty term - it just refers to a practical way of placing a mooring line over a bollard.

This whole confusion started because of someone asking to 'dip the rope'. The only ropes on a boat is the bolt rope and possibly the bell rope. All the other lines have names.

Yes it might be pedantic to some. But that is the language of English speaking seafarers. No doubt the French and the Portuguese etc. have their own terms that have no meaning to their own landlubbers.

 

[jerrytug]

this thread makes my buttocks clench and thank god I am unwashed, untrained and incompetent

Funnily enough, buttocks clench is a historic Royal Navy order dating from Collingwood's days, often given to young midshipmen when the bosun tumbled down the orlop ladder with a bottle of 'Nelson's Blood' and a huge ****-on, shouting: "It's time you boys polished the rusty nail!".
Sadly the modern yachtsman is typically unfamiliar with the fascinating argot of our maritime heritage.

 

[Shakemeister]

Naw, you're making that one up. That sort of goings on was illegal in them days. And it might be legal now but it's not compulsory. Anyway it's only gay if you ask for a reach around ha ha.

 

[cliff]

Funnily enough, buttocks clench is a historic Royal Navy order dating from Collingwood's days, often given to young midshipmen when the bosun tumbled down the orlop ladder with a bottle of 'Nelson's Blood' and a huge ****-on, shouting: "It's time you boys polished the rusty nail!".
Sadly the modern yachtsman is typically unfamiliar with the fascinating argot of our maritime heritage.

Ah, the days or Rum, Bum and Baccy.

 

[Shakemeister]

Free rum, cheap baccy - not so sure about the bum bit though.

Anyway, whose turn is it in the barrel - it's not mine 'cos I've got a chit from the Doc 'cos I told him I had Good AIDS off of a blood transfusion.

Will this thread drift any further ?

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

All we're talking about is nautical terminology. It's the language of English speaking seafarers.

...

Yes it might be pedantic to some. But that is the language of English speaking seafarers.

True enough. Although I am quite familiar with your language I had not come across that particular phrase. Being familiar with the proper way of threading the eye up through those already there and leaving it on top I did guess correctly what the OP had in mind.

 

[SimonFa]

All we're talking about is nautical terminology. It's the language of English speaking seafarers.

We use port and starboard without a second thought. Forrard and astern. Beam reach, broad reach, close hauled. Sheets, halliards, warps, whatever.

Why should 'dipping the eye' be singled out as some archaic grotty yotty term - it just refers to a practical way of placing a mooring line over a bollard.

Those are everyday nouns that you would expect to be taught to a competent crew. Its a reasonable assumption that anyone getting off a saily boat would at least be familiar with them.

As evidenced, here dipping the eye isn't in everyday usage and it was probably unreasonable or unwise to expect the average person to be familiar with it especially when you want your boat securing quickly and efficiently.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

Surely its time one of the learned few updated Wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_nautical_terms

(I did check, and fear not, AVAST is in there - my three year olds favourite of the rich nautical lexicon...)

 

[Shakemeister]

Those are everyday nouns that you would expect to be taught to a competent crew...............As evidenced, here dipping the eye isn't in everyday usage and it was probably unreasonable or unwise to expect the average person to be familiar with it especially when you want your boat securing quickly and efficiently.

I mentioned above that it isn't a 'must know' but it is a 'should know'.

 

[dombuckley]

Surely its time one of the learned few updated Wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_nautical_terms

Consider it done.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

Consider it done.

Well done that man.... wait....

Dipping the eye
Method of attaching more than one hawser to a single bollard, so that either can be lifted off without disturbing the other. The second hawser is passed under the first, then up through the eye of the first (hence the name), before being secured over the bollard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Nautical/May/19/Selected_picture refers.

Avast! Hawser is not defined here either! The land lubbers may be confused? Heartening to see the forum fulfilling its civic responsibilities.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Nor me. A typical 'old salt' completely unclear expression.

Me too. And I've been sailing for over 50 years.

 

[Lakesailor]

Line, rope, loop? Who cares? He "dipped" it in the water!

Well someone on here obviously cares about correct nautical terminology.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

This dipping thing is turning into the mooring equivalent of sail theory and Bernoulli's principle; quoted as truisms but completely wrong when describing the function. The reason for dipping is a lie, the wikipedia explanation is therefore a lie. It should read 'an archaic term used to describe a pointless mooring function that serves no purpose at all'.

Why bother to feed a bight up through the other bights and then drop it over a bollard, when just dropping it over the bollard achieves the same purpose even if other bights are subsequently dropped over. I am actually respecting the OPs sailing instructor more, as clearly he understood this.

 

[pmagowan]

To me the end result seems quite different. If you have two loops round a bollard and both are under tension the lowest one can not simply relieve the tension on his and leave as the upper one traps him. If the upper one had previously dipped his eye then the lower could leave without issue. The upper can leave in the same fashion as they arrived in either instance.

 

[prv]

a pointless mooring function that serves no purpose at all'.

So why do dockworkers the world over do it?

I've handled the ship end of the line in commercial ports in the UK, Ireland, France, Portugal, Gibraltar, Madeira, Tenerife, and the Azores. In every case, when a linesman ashore takes a line to a bollard that's already in use (and they will be, because we'd run out two or three lines ahead and astern, as well as the springs) he will dip it through the existing lines as described. Are they all part of some conspiracy?

I grant you that it's rarely essential in yachts, because it's not often that there's so much load in a line that you can't grab a moment's slack. But that doesn't make the technique inherently pointless, just not always necessary. When there's a 600-ton ship with miles of top-hamper on the other end of the warp, in an offshore breeze, I can assure you that you will not be squeezing anything between it and the bollard to escape off the top.

Pete

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

So why do dockworkers the world over do it?

... Are they all part of some conspiracy?

...in an offshore breeze, I can assure you that you will not be squeezing anything between it and the bollard to escape off the top.

Pete

I have given up trying to explain why and how it works. You, I and some others here know why and how because we have used it and seen it being used. If others, who evidently do not understand the principles of the method, are happy to live in a fantasy world where all berthing lines are always soft and are never under tension, then good luck to them... and to whoever has berthed before them and was first to use 'their' bollard.

 

[colind3782]

Perhaps we should wait for the OP to come back with the definitive answer?

 

[AuntyRinum]

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...

Me too. "Dip the rope"? Never heard of it, but it could be the sort of instruction you might give to a child when teaching them.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

It is carried out by dockers because the first ship in and on the bollard is usually the first one out after cargo operations have been concluded, so it is convenient for large hawsers to be dipped so that they end up below the ships that are likely to leave first. That is the only logical reason. It is certainly not because it allows any line to be slipped in any special way, as all loops adopt the same geometry on the bollard, dipped or not, despite what Puff The Magic Dragon thinks.