Does anyone know of a better book to buy that tells you about decorative knots and designs used for ships better. The Book I know of is called: The Marlinspike Sailor by Hervey Garrett Smith. I was wondering if anyone knew of a better book than this.

Marlinspike is probably one of the best for technique. If you´re looking for the "Bible" of knots then you want the Ashley Book of Knots which contains tens of thousands of knots in diagrams with history and uses for most.

Marlinspike is basicaly the best to learn the art of fancy ropework and then Ashley helps you perfect it. Of course - the best is to work with someone - it can be difficult to learn from books but Marlinspike is certainly a mainstay if your forced to go that route.

If you want to expand into rigging then also look at the Young Sea Officer´s Sheet Anchor a book that has been reprinted for 2 centuries now and basically descripes how to rig a full rigged ship from scratch - certainly quite an advanced topic.

Hope that helps...

Yeah, that does help, Thank-you. Do you by any chance know how much the Ashley Book of Knots costs?

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you - In short the answer is, it depends... Ashley comes in both at Hard Cover and Soft Cover edition. I´ve heard that the Hard Cover is now somewhat of a collectors edition...

I believe when I bought min about 18 years ago (yikes has it been that long!) it was around $50 (CDN)

Today´s price at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385040253/sr=1-4/qid=1156603259/ref=sr_1_4/002-0041182-2791202?ie=UTF8&s=books

-- looks like a pretty good deal along with Marlinspike.