The Origin of the"Clove Hitch" knot

200506
Saturday's meeting was great!

Teaching children to do lashing is no easy feat. By God's grace, I'm learning 'patience' and giving clear instructions so that they would hear and understand. The very first step in today's lesson was to be able to successfully tie a relatively tight 'Clove Hitch' along the pole. That alone, took a whopping 15minutes! Clove Hitch, simple as it sounds like, has come a long way with a unique history and origin.

Here's the situation:
Uncle William and Korkor Elgin were teaching some of the Boys how to do a diagonal lashing when Haryudi, a P2 Boy, asked how the clove hitch came about. Well, being an ex-scout, I took the liberty and explained as best as I could to those whose ears were keen. Uncle William quickly gave a shot at me and said: "You mean there's a story to this?"

Alexia stared at me with a suspicious look and with eyes of disbelief.

Here's how...

There was in America, a fisherman named Hitch. Being together with his girlfriend for a steady 2 years, they decided to get married. Times were bad and Hitch knew that nothing short of a ring would do for a marriage proposal.
Clove was a simple girl. She didn't ask for material needs nor fancy gifts.
Both were very practical persons too!
Thus, on the engagement day, Hitch took out his all time favourite fishing line, "twine", and tied it around Clove's fourth finger on the left hand. He tied this knot.

It was later known that Clove could not undo the knot and her finger was turning blue. Many fishermen came together with a number of enthusiastic scouts from the region. They all identified and agreed that the knot was indeed a well tied and secured one. They decided to name it "Clove Hitch".

Well, this story was told by yours truly. If you ask how I came to know of this story, I can only reveal this much that is my creative juices blended pretty well in the midst of the lesson. :)

The Girls, in particular, picked up lashing faster than most Boys. This surprised me. But what surprised me even more were the lashing done by them! They were TIGHT. Boys were not bad too! Seems like we can identify a few 'potentials' for the Gold badge. ;)

God willing, may He lead these them to grow from Boys and Girls.

Elgin