Giving Rank and Taking Rank Away; IOLS Test Out Spin Off

[GKlose]

This is kind of related to an ongoing discussion I've been having with the rest of the adult leadership of our troop -- we don't reinforce scout skills.

 

For example, the clove hitch...what is it used for? Starting certain lashings, for one thing. If your scouts aren't lashing things, then they aren't reinforcing the clove hitch. Lashing things (useful camp devices!) is fun.

 

The one that drives me up the wall is this one: the taut line hitch. I can tie it one-handed, because it is easy to tie one with one handing keeping the tension off a line headed to a tarp, while you use the other one to tie the hitch around a stake. I've done it hundreds of times. I could do it in my sleep. :-)

 

But I would guess that most of our scouts (ours, in the troop, that is) can't. Because they aren't pitching tarps. We have one of those large carport things (which I hate!) that assembles with a team of 8 people of so. One for the troop. My idea is to hand a tarp to a patrol, have them walk some distance away and set it up. Some other committee members want to purchase those pop-up shelters. I'm saying "No! We need tarps!". That's how you get them to improvise, to walk away, to be one more step self-sufficient, to learn taut line hitches.

 

I suppose you could argue the taut line hitch is anachronistic, or something like that. But until the requirements for Scout skills have "set up a pop-up shelter" instead of "demonstrate a taut line hitch", I'd prefer my way. Scout skills should not be learned for the benefit of solely passing rank. I think they should be put in a useful context.

 

Guy

[OldGreyEagle]

"there is nothing like a nice piece of hickory"

 

Nor a nice canvas tarp

 

 

http://www.equipped.com/tarp-shelters.htm

 

looks like the makings of a great patrol competition, who can make the best tent with the same size piece of "tarp" (The kind the Government don't use but I digress)

[Eagledad]

This would all be solved if National would add velcro, bungee cords and duct tape skills to the first class requirments. Oh and lets not forget lighting stoves. (LOL)

 

Barry

[Beavah]

Don't think you can compare swimming and bike riding to knots. Kids ride bikes and go swimming all the time. There is a good possibility the stuff they do in Scouting is the only time these things are done.

 

Doesn't matter, Ed. Just a question of what it means to be proficient. Kids don't ride bikes all winter around here, eh? They still know how come next year. I haven't tied a bowline in years. Don't use it for anything. But if yeh handed me a rope right now I could tie one. Like I said, we trust kids who have earned BSA Lifeguard to save people's lives 3 years after they get certified.

 

If yeh really sign off on requirements only when kids have truly learned something and are proficient at it, then there will never be an issue of them "forgetting" after a week or a few months. If yeh find that they are "forgetting", then da problem is you subtracted from the requirements and signed off before they had really learned it well.

 

So don't blame the boy if yeh find after a month that he can't perform the skill, and take away his rank patch for not keeping current. And don't excuse it as being "normal". It isn't. Blame yourself for signing off on a skill he didn't really know.

 

Now, the bigger problem is the one GKlose mentions, eh? Some of the T-2-1 requirements are sorta outdated and don't apply in some troops. If yeh don't have tarps or slippery nylon rope, there's no reason to really learn the taut line hitch. If yeh don't do lashing, there's no reason for those knots. So lots of times troops don't really expect kids to be proficient in those things. That's a problem with the requirements not really matchin' the program. It goes both ways, eh? Some troops have other skills that boys need to be proficient in (rigging a bear bag, for instance) that aren't in the requirements.

 

It'd be nice if troops were given some flexibility to choose from a list which T-2-1 requirements really applied to their program. At least for those things like particular knots and such.

 

Beavah

 

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[OldGreyEagle]

"Some of the T-2-1 requirements are sorta outdated and don't apply in some troops..."

 

One could take this as an indictment of an Liberal Arts Education

 

 

[evmori]

I could do the same Beavah, but you and I are not 12 years old.

[BartHumphries]

I use a taut-line hitch when I, for whatever reason, don't have my ratcheting straps and I want to tie a load down in the back of a truck. Thus, it gets used on a regular basis for me.

[Horizon]

Older boys teach? Check

Higher ranks signoff? Check

Problems with some skills atrophying? Check

 

With pop-up Coleman tents, no wind, and minimal rain - our knot skills are not tested without creating testing conditions. When I was a Scout, we slept in canvas tents and your knots determined your warmth and dryness. This is no longer so for my Troop here in SoCal.

 

If we want to do lashings, we have to add gardening poles to the Troop gear for the campout. There is no gathering of wood at any site we camp at in our area.

 

Lighting fires? Those are prohibited most months of the year, you can't gather fuel, and they are only in pre-built rings of steel using store bought wood.

 

Map and Compass? The local trails are well worn and well marked. Next to impossible to get lost.

 

300 feet? Not a chance in 90% of the sites where we camp.

 

So there are local challenges, and modern challenges to many of the skills. We work on ways around them. My last SPL liked to leave the tents behind and have everyone build their own shelters for the weekend. We had a carrying rack added to the Troop trailer for hauling the gardening poles.

 

The problem, IMHO, is that many of the skills we require are no longer needed on a regular basis. Again, when I was a Scout we had to start fires to cook and we had to tie knots to have a place to sleep. Those two NEEDs have been eliminated through modern gear, and Leave No Trace. Our challenge as Scouters is to keep teaching these skills, make them relevant, and also keep an eye open for what NEW skills should be taught for a well prepared, modern, outdoorsman:

 

Repair a propane stove

Fix a tear in a nylon tent

Replace the shock cord in a set of tent poles

[GKlose]

Bart -- that's a perfect use for a trucker's hitch (which is a very useful knot, especially for stringing a *very* tight ridge line for a tarp). I didn't really know the knot a year ago --

 

But after a dad who went on a canoe trip saw the outfitter use a trucker's hitch, he asked what it was. The dad asked me if I knew it, and I didn't, so I learned it.

 

I can't explain it too well here, but I found a YouTube video on tarps to be really useful in learning it (the tarp-stringer runs a tight ridge line using the trucker's hitch, then uses prussicks to secure the tarp to the ridge line).

 

The problem with using a taut line hitch for tying something down is that the knot isn't held tight by tension. That's where the trucker's hitch comes in. You can tie it one-handed, on one side of a vehicle, and it is in tension, so that the knot is held tight by it's own line. Shouldn't loosen up too much with vibration, unlike the taut line hitch. However, the trucker's hitch isn't adjustable like the taut line hitch -- you have to retie part of it to adjust it.

 

Guy

[perdidochas]

The trucker's hitch is a great example of a use for half hitches. Most of the half hitches I use in outdoor living are in trucker's hitches.

[Stosh]

Gee, the most common knot I tie is the double slip granny. All this discussion on knots and I got to looking really close and dang, been doing it wrong since kindergarten.

 

Stosh

[clemlaw]

I've been using the "trucker's hitch" for years, but only recently learned that it had a name. I was extremely relieved to learn that it had a name, because since it wasn't one of my five Tenderfoot knots, I thought that perhaps it was the dreaded "granny knot"!

 

I use the "trucker's hitch" all the time, but it does have one big disadvantage over the taut-line hitch. Depending on the kind of line that you're using, it can be almost impossible to untie. But fortunately, it's really only hard to untie with cheap rope, so I don't feel too bad just cutting it.

 

Also, while you can get that sucker tight, it's not nearly as strong as the taut-line hitch, because the weakest link is where the line doubles back over the loop.

 

But for many applications, it's just right.

[Kudu]

Horizon writes:

 

300 feet? Not a chance in 90% of the sites where we camp.

 

How about the other 10%?

[Horizon]

Kudu: At every site, I tell the Patrols to get as far away as possible. The Patrols are asked to also have distinct sites, and to have their flag proudly posted. In the past year, at ONE site was the Troop able to get 50 feet between Patrols, and 150 feet from the adults.

 

So, when the territory is available, we spread out to take up the maximum space and distance. That type of camping site is very difficult to get around here, and we like to go somewhere new every month (we have around 18 sites on our rotation).

[Beavah]

Yah, clemclaw, yeh shouldn't have trouble untying a trucker's hitch, eh?

 

Tie it on bites and the thing comes apart smooth as silk when yeh want it to. So the first loop is a half hitch with a bite (aka slip knot), and the lock-off is also a half hitch on a bite (aka slip knot).

 

 

Usin' a taut line hitch to tie somethin' to the top of your car scares the daylights out of me. Da vibration is guaranteed to loosen that knot. Wouldn't want to be followin' behind yeh on the freeway!

 

Beavah