It's a fair point. I think a lot has to to with the type of sailing done. When we race on any of the boats (260, 367, Pogo, Fareast) there are lines EVERYWHERE. We try and police them as a matter of boat hygiene, but the cockpit and fore-deck can end up looking like a snake orgy. Some 20 lines come back to the cockpit alone. Spinnaker lines are the worst. I've never had to cut one, but I've come real close several times.
This is ultimately a safety issue too. Wasn't there just a post that pointed out the habit of sailors not to stand on lines laying across the deck?
That is like asking when the last time you HAD to use your seat belt, or helmet or any number of other safety equipment items . I know people who have never made an insurance claim... should they not carry insurance?
It's a RESCUE knife. That is, to be used ONLY in EMERGENCY. The only time I have ever used it was for practice. The line would be cut not in the cockpit but in a situation like getting tangled up, then falling overboard and being dragged. How many times have you used you MOB buoy or your life raft and ditch bag in earnest?
Its never the stepping on them that gets you. Its the loop of line you don't see that suddenly snaps closed and pulls your leg or arm.
Not too sure about that. Ever step on a line and have your foot roll out from under you? That's why rope/line is never used as a jack-line.
Agree you might fall. I was responding about a situation that might require a knife.
This is not quite the same thing as a line going overboard looped around someones leg, but on a delivery this past week, I needed to deploy the emergency stern anchor, and I came close to cutting the lash lines. The captain had used two lash lines, each to a stanchion base, with way too many knots on each end of each line. Because I had the time, I untied a lot of knots, rather than cutting, but it was almost a full minute (cold weather, cold fingers, get the gloves off, etc) before I had the anchor over the side. If the situation had been more dire, I would have cut the lines, but I guess that also makes your point.
Thanks. Sometimes a few on here get a bit overly defensive. My question wasn't a challenge or a negative statement about being prepared but rather a question, out of curiosity, whether some had actually used a knife recently, in earnest.
@capta you know I like you man. I thought your question was a good one. My response was not with your question but to include the idea of a marlin spike in the useful tools. Likely more helpful than a knife, in my experience. The fact that a net can pull you under on a fishing boat is so true. Sailing on smaller boats getting flipped and entangled in the sheets as the mast becomes the keel has challenged sailors. Having been under more than once in my youth the experience can be frightening. Calm and a plan are the way to survive. Even then experience sailors get in trouble.
Amen to that! As I prepped all the docklines the morning we were to get underway on this same delivery, I found that ALL of the "cleat hitches" on the dock were incorrect, and incorrect through multiple "layers". On two of the incorrectly-cleated lines, a year's worth of weather, stress and the weight of a 40-ft motoryacht had jammed them so securely I needed a marlinspike to undo them from the cleat. If they hadn't been too short already, I would have cut those lines also!
That's an OK knife (I have one) but:
The marlin spike locks.