Learning From Failures Part 2

I have noticed that my failures seem a little more epic when they have an audience, and in this instance I had three.  These witnesses to my failure were Colleen, her daughter Jessi, and her son Sean.  We were going out to get a real Christmas Tree for our first Christmas together.  We were a family on a mission a to find a nice 8 foot tree for Colleen's living room.  We literally looked at a hundred trees to find the perfect one.  Little did I know the genesis of my failure was planted a few hours earlier in my selection of cordage.

Jute Twine was the culprit.  Colleen and I had gone to the hardware store to buy cordage to lash the tree to the roof rack of my ford explorer.  Jute twine was rated for 14lbs and it was only $3.99 for 100 yards. Also I like multi-use items for my bushcraft kit.  Jute twine is my second favorite method of tinder to catch a spark and start a fire.  It wicks well if you soak it in Vaseline.  You can use it for candle wicks as well.

This "birds nest" will really catch a spark

Pros: Cheap, makes good tinder,and it wicks.
Cons: If the twine compresses and is not held under constant tension, the strength of the twine weakens.  The braid comes undone for a second and when loaded again the strength is only the individual fibers not braided cordage.  It is the braid that gives cordage its strength.

Back to my story.  I secured the tree to the top of the car with four lengths of cordage, using solid double bowlines and hitches.  My knots were bomb proof,  I mean I am a rock climber and I am not dead... so my knots must be okay at a minimum.

Good knots = live climber. Bad knots = squishy goo at the bottom of a cliff.   


We drove with the tree for a quarter of a mile and hit a bump. The twine broke and the tree fell on the road behind us.  Thanks to the superb bundling job of the tree farm, no damage was done to the tree.  I know that the love of being right is one of my greatest faults, and my girlfriend is the one armed kid in the zoo who poked the bear with a stick.  She said, "I bet it was your knots."  This earned her a grrrr face, that she pretends to be afraid of, but not really.  I then, driven by my compulsion to be right, had to cut off all the twine to show her my knots were intact.  I then proceeded to retie the knots with paracord from Sean's bushcraft kit and we made it home without incident.  The girls did a gorgeous job decorating the tree.

What did I take away from this? Jute twine cannot be your primary cordage, and I need to be better about feeling I always need to be right.  So far I have managed to do away with the jute twine.

Until next time... keep your knives sharp and your powder dry.