Where do you keep your swords?

Steve on s/v Siempre Sabado posted this project about making a really tough-looking utilitarian rope mat, called a sword mat. I wonder about the derivation of that name - sounds interesting.

This time, instead of a fancy turk's head-type mat, I opted to make a more utilitarian woven mat called a Sword Mat. The plan is to use it on the side deck to bridge the dip caused by the placement of the deck scuppers.

I'll build a regular wooden cover one of these days but, in the meantime, this will hopefully alleviate the trip hazard.

Although the sword mat is pretty simple, just basic weaving, it's still a bit of work when using 3/4" line for the warp. The woof is made of 1/4" sisal.

Once the weaving is done, the ends are seized together with a frapped round seizing. Then the headrope, the line that the warps were bent over, has a walled crown knot tied on each end to form a knob to keep the headrope from sliding out. Took me quite a while to figure out how to tie a version of the walled crown knot that I liked and wasn't too huge of a knob.

But, finally it was all done and here it is:

This looks like it ought to wear like iron.