Bowline

As somebody posted upthread, it is exactly the same knot as a rethreaded bowline, just tied differently. So it can be used just like a bowline for tieing around large (or tall) objects.

You can also use it to go really old school...

I've used the bowline on a bight to sling a boulder using a static line in a top rope anchor. Works good. You don't have pull all the slack through like a regular bowline.

Bowline on a bite is all I use to tie in with. I only use an 8 at the gym where it's the rule.

I would never use it without the full retrace and backup barrel knot.

Ondra climbs using a Bowline. He doesn't even bother to retrace.

I use this knot all the time in regular life. Cloves too.

Deimos wrote:As somebody posted upthread, it is exactly the same knot as a rethreaded bowline, just tied differently. So it can be used just like a bowline for tieing around large (or tall) objects.

I've often wondered about this. Doesn't "on a bight" mean that you can tie the knot without access to either end? If so, then it is indeed impossible to tie a "bowline on a bight" directly to an object without passing a loop around the object.

The final knot is indeed the same if you follow the retrace method, but this requires access to the working end. Therefore, I don't think it's correct to call it a "bowline on a bight" when you're done. I think you have to call it something else (double rethreaded bowline?). I could very easily be mistaken, though.

AGAIN....

Darn bowline.... keeps coming untied, or gets tied wrong. (ask my buddy JL)

Your partner can't tell, at a glance, if it right or dead wrong

I use Figure eight, clove hitch, EDK, sometimes double fishermans, a butterfly, to tie into the middle of a rope, a waterknot for webbing and a prussic for when you need to climb up a rope (ever used your shoelace?)

I believe in keeping climbing simple, no need to toss in all sorts of strange knots... that can be tied incorrectly, just cause some sailor can.

KISS

True. You can't tie a bowline on a bite around something like a tree ... That would In fact be a follow through. You could however tie it around a post or something ... Maybe something found at a dock for example.

Gotta love geeking out about semantics concerning knots!

Guy Keesee wrote:Your partner can't tell, at a glance, if it right or dead wrong

Mine all can, that´s what comes of climbing with competent people.

Jim Titt wrote: Mine all can, that´s what comes of climbing with competent people.

+1. I tie in with a bowline if I think I'm going to flail around.

Jim... respectfully, I do climb with competent folks.... and most of the stupid near misses I have witnessed, involved bowline knots.

When Largo decked I was shocked....

Jest saying

wfscot wrote: I've often wondered about this. Doesn't "on a bight" mean that you can tie the knot without access to either end? If so, then it is indeed impossible to tie a "bowline on a bight" directly to an object without passing a loop around the object. The final knot is indeed the same if you follow the retrace method, but this requires access to the working end. Therefore, I don't think it's correct to call it a "bowline on a bight" when you're done. I think you have to call it something else (double rethreaded bowline?). I could very easily be mistaken, though.

Deep stuff. We might have left semantics and hit the philosophical.

Does that mean that a bowline on a bite that was tied using the ends, but could have been tied without access to the ends is not in fact a bowline on a bite? And who would know? The person who tied the knot I guess. But if she isn't there, then who?

This means if you come across a bowline on a bite, that could have been tied either way and the person who tied it is not there to ask, then as you don't know which way it was tied, you can't call if it is a bowline on a bite. This means I think that most pictures of a bowline on a bite in knot books are not bowlines on bites, as they are not tied around anything, and hence could have been tied either way.

Heavy.

:)

I really must get out more.

Guy Keesee wrote:Jim... respectfully, I do climb with competent folks.... and most of the stupid near misses I have witnessed, involved bowline knots. When Largo decked I was shocked.... Jest saying

I no nothing about this terrible sounding accident, but I have always thought a bowline on a bite might be safer for tying in with, rather than a rethreaded bowline and stopper, with respect to the knot not being finished correctly. With a bowline on a bite if you don't finish it the tail reaches to your knees or below so is easy to spot.

My dear Coley,

I believe and wfscot are mixing up potentiality and actuality and thereby creating a vexing conundrum where none need exist. The bowline on a bight (please, sir, no biting) is what it is because it can be tied on a bight, not because it must be tied that way.

How a particular instance of this knot it came into existence ought not, and I would argue does not, alter its essential nature as a bowline that might or might not have been tied on a bight but certainly could have been, as far as the structure of the knot---as opposed to what the loop does or does not enclose---is concerned.

:) :)

Guy, I don't know what you've witnessed personally, but Largo decked because he didn't tie any knot, not because he tied a bowline that came undone. His accident has nothing to do with bowlines.

Other accidents attributed to bowlines, like the one in the gym in the UK, are also just as likely to be of this type---the climber began threading the rope, for some reason paused and then started climbing without ever actually tying in. I did this myself many years ago and survived by soloing the pitch after the rope fell off. Lynne Hill has famously done it too, only surviving the resulting fall by a miracle, with a figure-eight tie-in.

When a person falls and there is no figure-eight left in the rope, it is fashionable to assume a bowline was tied and came undone, and so the "evidence" for the unreliability of bowline accumulates.

If you can manage to pay attention to what you are doing, you won't have any problem with any standard knot and won't need anyone to check it either.

As for checking, there are sixteen ways to carry out the motions involved in tying a bowline. Most of these result in something that falls apart in your hand so not a problem. A few give rise to either a standard bowline or a perfectly good variation known as the Dutch Navy bowline that some people say is superior to the standard and some say is not. The remaining few combinations produce what is called an Eskimo bowline, and this probably should not be used as a climbing tie-in, although I've never seen any test data about it. So what ought to be checked is that an Eskimo bowline has not been tied, and extremely easy check carried out by looking how the load strand of the rope exits the knot.

I might add that I have never, in 58 years of climbing, ever seen a climber accidentally tie an Eskimo bowline, perhaps because the nature of the way the rope is threaded through the harness makes this possibility somewhat difficult to carry out.

And yes, bowlines must have a finishing knot. A bowline without such a knot is indeed dangerous for climbing purposes.

Jess sayin'

Thinking about it a little more, I can see some logic it a bowline on a bight be more failsafe than most other things. When tying one the first act is to pull several feet of rope through your tie in point. If you were distracted at this point and didn't tie anything else you would most likely trip up or at least notice the rope soon. If you half finish the knot you have one bowline with no "stopper"; not ideal, but still a knot. Get distracted after this point and everything is a bonus (although I haven't played with this). If you stop before tying the first bowline it will just fall apart, leaving you treading on the rope again.

Guy Keesee wrote:...most of the stupid near misses I have witnessed, involved bowline knots...

Knots don't kill climbers, climbers do - incompetence and / or distraction, however fleeting, can kill you in any number of ways, tying in being one of several common ones.

As knots go the figure eight is definitely a 'lowest common denominator' affair and hence its appeal, particularly in gyms where there are commercial liability concerns. But in forty one years of climbing I've only used it under duress in gyms which don't allow for anything else. Personally, I find it a mindlessly stupid way of tying in if you are going to do much in the way of falling, but to each his own.

What I've always done - double bowline w/ a Czech finish:

Healyje wrote: Personally, I find it a mindlessly stupid way of tying in if you are going to do much in the way of falling, but to each his own.

this looks a bit like a fig 8 ...

no doubt hes mindlessly stoopid from all the ganja he smoked in his early years ...

course he does whip quite a bit



;)

"Guy, I don't know what you've witnessed personally, but Largo decked because he didn't tie any knot, not because he tied a bowline that came undone. His accident has nothing to do with bowlines."

Yoga pants are a big distraction. LOL

Personally... I have been with people who became distracted, passed the rope through harness and forgot to tie the knot. Almost ended in deaths.

I just like the simplest knot.... and if your going to be dogging, just tuck the end of the rope in the fig-eight right where it cinches down....

bearbreeder wrote: this looks a bit like a fig 8 ... no doubt hes mindlessly stoopid from all the ganja he smoked in his early years ... course he does whip quite a bit ;)

If he used a decent tie-in knot he could climb as well as this noob:-)
Adam Ondra

Guy Keesee wrote:"Personally... I have been with people who became distracted, passed the rope through harness and forgot to tie the knot. Almost ended in deaths. I just like the simplest knot.... and if your going to be dogging, just tuck the end of the rope in the fig-eight right where it cinches down....

Which is exactly how Lynn Hill took an 80 ft groundfall with an incomplete.... drum roll please..... figure eight knot!

Guy, the danger you recognize is complacency, not a "dangerous knot." There is literally nothing about a figure-eight that makes it more likely to be completed (or forgotten to be completed, for that matter).