Gifts For Sailors, From Someone Who Works In Rope

Sailors are a hard crowd. Not unfriendly, just informed. They have spent years with rope in their hands and they can tell a decent whipping from a hot knife and a prayer from about ten feet away.

So if you are buying a sailor something made of rope, it has to be properly made or it is going in a drawer.

I make things out of retired climbing rope in a workshop in Aberdeen, which is a port town, so I have had this conversation over a market stall more than once.

Why I work in climbing rope and not marine line

This is the question every sailor asks me, so here is the answer up front.

Marine cordage is mostly built to resist salt, sun and stretch. Halyards and sheets want to hold their length under load, so they lean on polyester and high modulus fibres. Good rope. Not my rope.

Climbing rope is nylon and it is built to do the opposite. It is designed to stretch, because stretching is how it takes the energy out of a falling human instead of putting it through their spine. That stretch, and the woven sheath over a twisted core, is what makes it lovely to work with once it is retired. It holds a shape. It takes a stitch. The colours are ridiculous.

Gifts for sailors that will not end up in a drawer

Rope coasters, £4 each. The one made for a boat. A coiled, stitched coaster does not slide about and does not care about a wet glass. Rope coasters.

Cup cosy and can cooler, £30. A cold tin on deck in July, a hot brew in the cockpit in October. Earns its space aboard.

Rope belt, £28 or £33. Made to exact waist, 22 to 50 inches. Nylon does not mind getting wet, which is more than you can say for leather. Recycled climbing rope belts.

Rope bowl, £55. For keys, shackles and the bits that live by the chart table. Three left.

Keychains, £3 to £15. Including a proper carabiner one. Have a look.

Rope bracelet, £10. Made to wrist size, so you need to know it or guess well. Rope bracelets.

And if they have old line aboard

Most boats have a locker with retired sheets and halyards in it that nobody wants to throw out. I will take climbing rope first, but I am always interested in what else is out there. Drop me a line through send me your rope and tell me what you have got.

Less waste. More miles.

Stay classy and remember,
Make Waste Useful.

George