An old hand in Galveston told me my rigging was too slow

I was working a salvage job about five years back, tying off a piece of deck plate. This guy, must have been in his 60s, watched me for a minute from the dive platform. When I surfaced, he just said, 'You tie a good knot, kid, but you're doing it three times. One good one is faster than three pretty ones.' He showed me a single hitch he used for temporary lifts, something he'd done for decades in the Gulf. I was so focused on textbook perfection I was wasting bottom time. I switched to his method for non-critical ties, and my work rate improved. It wasn't about cutting corners, it was about using the right tool for the job. Has anyone else had a veteran change how you think about a basic task?

3 comments

3 Comments

rowan_thomas8415d ago

You were doing salvage work at 19?

corablack15d ago

Yeah, that was a weird summer.

victor_robinson14d ago

Man, that hits home. I was so proud of my textbook bowline I could tie in the dark, but it took me a full minute. An old rigger saw me once and just sighed, said my knot was a work of art but my speed was a crime. He was right, I was basically doing origami down there when a simple clove hitch would have held just fine. Sometimes you need to unlearn the perfect way to find the right way.