NAVIGATION

It was on the handle of a walking cane that the scrimshander usually lavished his greatest attention and to the sailor the symbol of the turks-head knot was a favourite device. This particular knot when worked with a logline will form a turban, and so was called a ‘turks-head’. They likened the endless knot with no seams or visible beginning or end, to love and so it became symbolic of interdependence and of a union. The spiral patterned shaft is turned to resemble the tusk of a narwhal, and is made from the white bone from the broad pan of the jaw of a younger sperm whale.