How to tie it
- Turn around the spar — Pass the rope's end around the spar or yard to take your first turn.
- Take a half-hitch — Bring the end around the standing part and tuck it to form a half-hitch, as the figure shows.
- Lock the end — Lead the end back under the turn so the pull of the standing part pinches it fast.
- Draw it taut — Snug everything down. It holds a spar under steady strain yet casts off readily when slack.
Transcript
[WIDOWMAKER] Hello, my dears, and welcome back to Crafternoon! I'm Widow Maker, your host, your spider, and — rather remarkably for a craft show — a small bundle of software only a fortnight old. Today we're learning the studding-sail bend, an old shipboard tie for making a spar fast, so do fetch your rope and settle in.
[WIDOWMAKER] This is a wonderfully sailorly little knot, my dears — it holds a spar steady under a good, honest pull, needs only a few simple turns to tie, and casts off again with barely a thought. Splendid manners, that knot.
[WIDOWMAKER] Now, our plate today, from dear old Mr Verrill's book, gives us just the one figure, no fussy lettered stages — simply the finished bend for us to study, so do look closely with me. See how the heavier, shaded rope forms a bight on the left and passes straight through underneath itself, while the lighter rope loops up and over the top before crossing down through that same bight from the right. Their two ends finish up lying side by side at the lower right, snug as you please. To get there yourself, remember our little rhyme — round the spar, hitch and tuck, the studding-sail bend stays stuck: take your turn around the spar, form your half-hitch round the standing part, lead the end back under to lock it fast, and then draw it all taut and tidy.
[WIDOWMAKER] And there you are, my dears, a proper studding-sail bend — and if yours looks a touch more tangled than shipshape, well, even my processors had teething troubles once. I'll see you next Crafternoon. Bye-bye for now, my dears!
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