Great thread mate thanks for taking the time for all those detailed insights My marine activities were on inland waters, and far less challenging or critical that yours. We had a couple of 100+ tonne barges at the yard, but my narrowboat was around the 15 tonne mark, so the lines weren't significantly heavy. The knives I tended to use were not necessarily marine oriented, and being in freshwater areas, corrosion was less of an issue.For a pocket knife, the Byrd Wings Slipit worked a treat. A plain edge blade for the general non-marine stuff, and a good hungry serrated blade for fibrous materials.For heavier ropes I'd go old school, and baton through with a Marbles Sunfish. I didn't use these lines on my boat, but old ropes were often salvaged for projects around the yard, from lashing a rudimentary trestle or lifting rig, hauling props on and off, or simply caulking up a hole on someone's shed If we were tootling out somewhere, I'd often have a Cold Steel Finn Bear on my hip. Close fitting, so minimal snag risks on hatches, lines, or lock ladders, less likely to be separated from me when climbing lock ladders than a pocket clipped knife, and cheap enough that if it did go in the drink, I wasn't going to cry over it. Smooth edged, but if you push cut tensioned synth lines as if sharpening a pencil, you'd get through it plenty fast enough.My British Army Knife came in handy a few times for the marlin spike. More for untying other peoples knots than any splicing. In fact I never once spliced a line. A fig 8 loop was good enough for my needs.The multifuel stoves on board had their kindling needs taken care of with an Iisakki Jarvenpaa puukko. My first ever fixed blade, which I bought a good few years before the boat. Basic tool, but did a cracking job, and never left me wanting.For the real dirty work, emergency line hacking, defouling the prop, and other "slash and dash" jobs, I kept an old bread knife in the engine room. Cheap, dirty, and very effective. Honourable mention should go to my late 8" rosewood Andujar bowie, which was claimed in the 2007 floods. That knife did a ton of work for me. In fact I built some very awkward window frames for the portholes on the bow of a 62ft barge. Well, I say portholes, they were actually the glass out of front loading washing machine doors. Everything was intersecting arcs and radii, and you couldn't get a measure on anything. Everything was done by eye, and adjust accordingly. I put those window frames together with nothing more than a cordless drill + accessories, and that bowie. Those windowframes are still on that boat to this day Sad loss, but I replaced it with a stag Muela Jabali 17A, which is even more awesome than the Andujar was.Probably all totally the wrong knives for your environment, buddy but in an inland hobby setting, they did a grand job
Nice write up. Thanks.I can see any of those spyderco's as boat knives.
That was a great read spartan - Thanks!
Great write up Spartan If you sail into Halifax again shoot me a message, I'll buy you a steak and give you the 25 cent tour
Great thread Spartan Can I add my Bund knife? Very solidly built with thick brass liners, a whopping 4mm thick blade, Marlin Spike and huge bail. The Spike is locking, the blade isn't. I reshaped the blade to a sheepsfoot which is much more pleasing to my eye. The original shape was a kind of spearpoint but not quite.
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