With the District winter camp coming up, we knew that our eight Scouts taking part would be building shelters from plastic sheeting and sisal, so we practised some useful knots. The clove hitch is OK for tying off an improvised guy line to a tent peg, although it’s better when both ends of the rope are being pulled equally (for example when attaching a rope fence to a post). The round turn and two half hitches is better for the bigger jobs, such as tying a rope between two trees to support the shelter.