(3). An American Whipping is sometimes used for the ends of hawsers. It is commenced in the same way as a common whipping, but finished off by having both ends out in the middle of the whipping and forming a reef knot. This is done by leaving the first end out when you commence to pass the turns on the bight over the last end.
(4). To Point a Rope End.—First put a stop on at twice and a half the circumference of the rope from the end, which will leave about the length for pointing, unlay the rope to the stop and then unlay the strands. Split a number of the outside yarns and make a nettle out of each yarn. (A nettle is made by laying up the yarns with the finger and thumb left-handed.) When the nettles are made stop them back on the standing part of the rope; then form the point with the rest of the yarns by scraping them down to a proper size with a knife, and marl them down together with twine; divide the nettles, taking every other one up and every other one down. Pass three turns with a piece of twine—which is called the warp—very taut round the part where the nettles separate, taking a hitch with the last turn. Continue to repeat this process by placing every alternate nettle up and down, passing the warp or "filling," taking a hitch each time, until the point is to its required length. It is generally finished off by working a small Flemish eye in the end (Figs. 106 and 107).
(5). Turk's Head.—The Turk's Head is one of the most common of the ornamental knots used at sea, and is formed from an ordinary clove hitch (Fig. 108) made sufficiently slack to allow for the working of the other parts.
Having formed the clove hitch, pass b over c and tuck a under and up through the bight formed by c as in Fig. 109. It will then be found that there is another twist in the parts b and c, tuck a under e and over b. Then go on as in Fig. 109, and put b over c again and tuck a as before. The number of crossings required depends principally on the size of the material on which the Turk's Head is formed. To finish off as in Fig. 110, the part a is made to follow d (Fig 108) round for three times.