One of the most important things with mooring knots and your choice thereof is 'can it be undone even if the boat is pulling on it?' Whilst most people concern themselves with not wanting the knot to come undone when it shouldn't just about every novice boater forgets that in an emergency you want to be able to undo a knot quickly and easily.

There are books, books and even more books dedicated to knot tying and for some reason everyone you speak to about boating immediately assumes that you are some kind of expert on the subject. There are indeed many of us that can do some pretty nifty stuff with ropes, all manner of splices and decorative stuff but there are many more that can't and it isn't in any way a requirement. In fact I reckon that you can get away with knowing only two knots so here goes.

First up then is the one for fastening to the 'T' shaped studs on your boat and loosely follows a figure of 8 pattern. You may have seen, or even tied this one for a washing line in the days when a washing line was a washing line and not a spiders web on a pole. This knot assumes that you are going to take a rope ashore, round or through some kind of bollard, fixed loop (mooring ring, a piling hook or one of your spikes suitably hammered into decent ground) before returning the end to your boat for fastening.

These diagrams assume that you are looking directly down on a 'T' stud.

Your rope comes back to the boat from 1, under the 'T' stud, out the other side to 2, then over the top to 3.	From 3 the rope goes under the 'T' stud to the opposite side at 4.	From 4 the rope goes over the top of itself on its' way to position 5, forming an 'X' on top of the 'T' stud.	Under from 5 to 6, then repeat so that from 6 you go over the top of the 'X' towards 7 again.

When you have repeated this pattern twice finish off by using a couple of half hitches, either two on the same side or one on each side of the stud.

Next is the 'Lightermans back mooring hitch'. A well known and much trusted little number that like the figure of 8 job described earlier can be undone even if there is a massive pull on it. This works well when you wish to moor to a bollard - maybe whilst waiting for a lock or taking on water etc. and can be tied or untied in moments.

The rope comes from the boat at 1, then goes around the bollard. Note it is clockwise at the moment.	The rope goes around the bollard 2 - 3 times before a loop (2) goes UNDER the rope from the boat.	The loop thus formed gets placed OVER the bollard and the end of the rope (3) goes around the bollard anti clockwise a few times.

This is harder to explain than it is to do and seems far too simple an arrangement to work, but work it does due to the friction the multiple turns create.