Almost certainly not the final word on puddings, fenders or whiskers…

A pudding, or a whisker? Pic supplied by Tim Whitten

Tim Whitten emailed today to show us this photo of a pudding he made at the end of last week. Whatever you choose to call it, it’s a pretty serious piece of line engineering. Here’s what he had to say:

‘ Perhaps the reference that most people would agree on is the text contained in Ashley’s Book of Knots. To paraphrase, he quotes and references puddings as meaning any soft fender. A fender need not necessarily be very soft and cushiony and so the act of softening a hard core by building it up with yarns or thrums could be called puddening. Thrums are shaggy yarns pushed through a fender or mat for added cushioning.

‘I would describe bow fenders as being either thrummed or not. They can be either a series of woven mats stitched together, or a cylindrical hitched fender wrapped horizontally around the bow. The thrummed variety of either the mat or hitched fender are sometimes called whiskers or moustaches.

‘Here is a picture of a thrummed mat that I just finished. It used up a little under 600 ft of 1/2 manila rope. My client calls it a whisker…’

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