All About Knots
… how sailing and economics are tied together.
The bowline is a kind of knot used for many purposes in sailing, most often to attach a sheet to a clew. These are very specific terms to the sailor who needs no further clue that we are referring to a specific line, not cotton bedding, tied to the bottom corner of a sail. The knot forms a loop that will not slip under tension yet can easily be loosened and undone.
Although words can have precise definitions, assembling them into a language of explanation is another matter. It would be easy to demonstrate how to make a bowline or show it with step-by-step images, but a verbal description alone will leave much to the imagination. There is a classic mnemonic to help visualize it; “The rabbit comes out of the hole, goes around the tree, then back down through the hole.”
Here is a more detailed instruction, on the off chance it helps.
- Form a small loop: Make a small loop near the end of the rope, leaving enough length for the loop itself and the working end.
- Thread the working end: Pass the working end of the rope through the small loop you just created. Bring it up and around the standing part of the rope (the longer section).
- Complete the knot: Pass the working end back down through the small loop. Tighten by pulling both the working end and the standing part firmly.
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In another sailing context, knots can have a very different meaning. Other than connecting lines for various purposes, they are a measure of speed in nautical miles per hour (which is a minute of latitude at the equator, 6,076 feet, about 1.15 statute miles or 1.85 kilometers). The traditional way to measure knots of sailing speed was to toss a large wood chip overboard, attached to the end of a log line (a rope with knots spaced 47.25 feet apart). They would count the number of knots that passed through their hands in 28 seconds, and this told them the speed of their vessel in knots. It was simple math.
Electronic instruments substitute for log lines today, so long as your boat battery has not died. Still, velocity through the water is not the same as speed over ground. You must always account for any countercurrents at play that will affect your true speed and ETA to the destination.
Making it trickier still is that sailing destinations are never straight ahead. You cannot sail directly to windward, and the fastest heading is always at some tacking angle, both upwind and down. There is a specific point of sail (angle to the wind), depending upon the vessel type, wind strength and sail configuration, where your course will be making the best possible progress in the direction of your goal. This is defined as the velocity made good (VMG), which adjusts for all conditions and is never quite equal to your speed through the water or over ground.
Some principles of sailing offer apt metaphor for another subject of more general interest. Economics has similarly specialized terminology that is more familiar to economists than others. Gross domestic product (GDP) is the total market value of all goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period. It is commonly used to measure progress, just like speed through the water in a sailboat.
The total of all spending in an economy drives GDP like the wind moves a sailboat. Inflation is like an adverse current that must be taken into consideration in order to understand the ‘Real GDP’, adjusted for inflation. The greater the tidal flow, the more wind it will take to overcome. In most boats, the sailor can fire up a diesel to artificially overpower some currents in light wind, although this is not truly sailing and consumes your limited reserves of fuel. Central banks can similarly stimulate spending by reducing interest rates and distributing monetary energy to consumers, until the side effects of artificial forces overheat the environmental engine.
Using GDP growth to measure progress is based on the idea that increasing the market value of goods and services is the ultimate goal and ignores any question of more sustainable destinations. It fails to account for other factors that might better define quality of life throughout the population, be it environmental, housing, or health care, to name a few. Remember, VMG is a better way of judging true progress, taking into consideration all conditions. Consumer spending alone does not necessarily move the vessel in the most desirable direction. The intelligent navigator must choose the most advantageous angles to sail.
No discussion of economics could ignore tariffs as the latest hot topic du jour. There are so many entanglements related to this knotty problem that will test the navigation skills of even the best economists to find the best course of action, given the questionable objectives of Captain Ahab. So, we’ll keep it simple.
It seems obvious that additional fees on imported goods will make them more costly and generate an adverse current the same as inflation. I heard an administration official straining to explain the concept that tariffs will produce “revenue enhancement” without ever emitting the word taxes. There is never acknowledgment that this kind of enhancement is regressive and will impact the passengers in steerage far more than the elite who can fly ahead to their next port of call.
Economists understand that real GDP must be adjusted for this slowdown, but there could be one silver lining (maybe a little bit green) that no one has yet talked about. The increased cost of these goods will also dampen their consumption and help to sustain some of the resources that would otherwise be used in their making. Could this be a navigational oversight that might unintentionally enhance our velocity made good? Best not to mention it. Any sailor will tell you, “The voyage IS the destination.”
