Most of the lines on an average boat are either double braided or twisted three-strand, but single braid does show up on occasion. If you do have it, here's how to splice it.

My advice: Avoid single braid rope. Splicing it is very tedious (an hour or two per eye for 12-strand, although 8-strand is much faster), and without a protective cover it's more easily damaged and more prone to chafe than double braid. But now and then, you just happen to have some, and wouldn't it be nice to have proper spliced eyes in it instead of bulky bowline knots....

There's quite a flurry of debate going on right now about automatic identification system (AIS) equipment. The question of the month is about who sees what: if you fit your boat with a class B AIS transponder, will big ships carrying class A equipment set their display filters to hide your much smaller vessel from their radar displays?