An old skipper of mine used to say that ropes were a ‘bunch of buggers’ if they were poorly coiled down -like a rogue hosepipe – and would snarl angrily if they snagged your fingers in the dark when load came on.

He could tie a bowline without using the ‘rabbit round the tree and through the hole’ routine. And he taught me. It was quick. But not as quick as 0.3 of a second which no-one in the YM office believes is possible.

We have just tried it out.
The winner is production editor Kieron Flatt, a Twister owner and sailor at 2.92 seconds. Second was yours truly, a Contessa 32 owner at 3.5 seconds and third came Graham Snook, YM’s photographer, a Sadler 32 owner at 4.0 seconds.

If there’s someone out there who really can tie a bowline in 0.3 seconds, I’ll buy him/her lunch.