Not Dropping Heavy Things.

I don’t feel as though I’ve got to justify my sailing hobby – or more accurately, my ‘learning-to-sail hobby’ – but if I did, this might suffice.
One of the additional benefits of learning how to control a boat is learning how to use rope. I’ve flailed at ropes for years, hoping that if I put enough loops and "knots" in them they would do a job of holding whatever needed to be held. So now, when circumstances might require you to park your horse, or you’ve got a captive, or some big pieces of scaffolding need to go from down here to way up there – it is a relief to know that no matter what else may go wrong, your knot will still hold. This knot is the bowline (pronounced “bo-lin”) and it is sometimes referred to as ‘the king of knots’.
Such was my desire to begin the mastery of rope that I taught myself to tie this knot one handed, with either hand and with my eyes closed.