Tom,

Four will have to do, and it may be that even that is more than I will have room for. This project is a real challenge as I try to prioritize stuff and still cover most bases in the very limited space available.

Don'tcha just love those animated knot tying illustrations. Never ceases to amaze me.

Unfortunately, that isn't an option.

No offence taken.
I added a link and an illustration (Mozilla didn´t display the image <img src="images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />). Maybe it´ll be clearer with that. The actual loop of the bowline knot is formed by the short end and you can put that loop around any object before tightenng the knot. Actually the fit around the object will be much better with this technique.

Hikerdon - I concur with everything you wrote on the topic, so I guess I'm ranting, er, rambling to read my own words... actually, to expand on what you wrote AND to take a good natured poke at one of my favorite group of nuts (and I guess I'm on the fringe of that group, LoL)

<<Climbers over the years have moved from the bowline to the figure 8 as the preferred knot because ...>>

Yep! Because whatever - I've heard several "reasons", yours being, I think, the best and most compelling one. And... *some* enthusiastic climbers are knot and gear snobs - it's a fickle, faddy group... salted with older folks who are less certain that this or that is the *ONLY RIGHT WAY* <grin> There are even wierd regional preferences for one use or another - like a "Bugaboo prussic" (which is actually pretty handy) Since I learned to climb anywhere with simple and unsophisticated equipment, these sorts of antics and "professions of faith" continue to amuse me greatly...

A side spur - I can hardly find my preferred style of harness any more because some poor soul used one wrong one time and fell to his death - only the legal team that sued the company to bankruptcy won on that. I'm confident you know the event/ company... and the fact that properly used, that was one of the strongest and most bullet proof style of harnesses ever made. Gee, climbing can be dangerous - who would have guessed???

I've trained scads of young men (and some young women) some aspects of climbing over the years with gear ranging from "modern primative" to the latest. A lot depends on the individual. There is nothing wrong with a bowline; many "nouveau experts" claimed, among other things, that it was not as strong as a figure 8. Hmmm... recently challenged, the facts now in show that it is marginally stronger than a figure 8 - but not enough to matter. So much for "experts"... Nonetheless, for the last 12 or so years, I've only trained folks to use the figure 8 for climbing applications - even though I personally prefer a bowline in MANY applications - properly tied (backup or stopper knot, which is the ONLY way I was ever taught to use it for anything more involved than a guyline on a tarp grommet)

But no one unknowledgable in these "ETS" circumstances should be climbing anyway - I didn't read that in Doug's note. The bowline is a "pure" classic knot - very elegant - just a loop and a bight, and even after the most horriffic rope-wrecking strain can be untied IF YOU KNOW HOW. It has a large number of useful variants, but those are not at all obvious and often are hard for some folks to understand how to tie even when walked through the process.

OTOH, as you stated, the figure 8 variants are for the most part fairly obvious - I've seen many folks "discover" useful variants in idle moments, especially once a re-woven figure 8 is taught. That is, the knot itself suggests several of its useful variants. Sure, it uses more of the rope than a proper bowline and it IS very important to ensure that it is dressed properly in ultimate strength applications - unlike a bowline, it can be tied "properly" and yet not be dressed properly. But I figured that for the most part, these are not the applications Doug has in mind.

Long-winded way of concuring with you - I believe that the figure 8 stuff is better suited for Doug's appplication than the bowline. For the non-climbers reading this: Folks, get someone to show you applications of figure 8 variants and draw your own conclusions - but you'll have to set aside your personal paradigms to be objective.

Another thing that you mentioned - the polyxxxxx ropes - eeewww! Those slippery and stiff rascals can work loose just about anything, even a splice and they are extremely bad when the tension varies - slack off and it practically unties itself in front of your eyes. Here's a tip - sieze the finished knots, even with a couple of wraps of duct tape. But I still hate the stuff...

Not to confuse the matter - but my favorite utility cord in the general range of 1/4 inch (~ 6mm) is polyester - Dacron, by one trade name. Not to be confused with polyethylene, polypropylene, etc. Paracord is second favorite (albeit smaller diameter), followed (at GREAT cost increase) by climber's accessory cord. The Dacron stuff is much more durable than the nylons and it all has a great hand - did I mention cheap? Emergency gear has 550 paracord, but my regular non-climbing use stuff is 80% Dacron...

OK - far enough off topic now that I can quit <grin>

Regards,

Tom

1. sheet bend
2. round turn and 2 half hitches
3. clove hitch
4. figure 8 loop

I 'play' with many more knots, but most of them can be replaced with the above 4 knots. I agree that a lashing (square) is quite important.

Ok, okay - I got it now.

The long end (technically, I believe it's called the standing end?) is the one going off to the left in your diagram; and the short end, or running end, is the one going straight up. Presumably, it wraps around a fixed object that's out of the picture, then comes back down to finish the bowline in step 3.

I just tied one your way, and another one my way. After examining them both side by side, I realized they were identical. (Except - being pedantic here - I believe the illustration you have actually ties a "left-handed bowline" - one in which the short end lies outside the loop. In a "true" bowline, the short end should lie inside the loop. (In step 3, the running end should be fed through the loop from the bottom, instead of the top as you have it. But I think that's a very minor nitpick - I've never heard that a left-handed bowline is either superior or inferior to a "true" one.

I'll have to learn this - I'm not sure that it's any easier for me than the way I already know, but several of the cadets at our Wilderness Survival camp in August were extremely frustrated by their inability to learn (or rather, the instructor's inability to teach :< ) this "simple" knot.

Believe it or (k)not, a left handed bowline is considered to be 50% weaker than the "real" thing by a lot of classic references in climbing/caving literature. I believe the current opinion is that a left handed bowline is a tiny bit, maybe 10%, weaker. This is such that if the rope breaks, it is probably going to break somewhere other than at the knot where use or abuse has caused hidden damage. If a modern rope used anywhere near correctly fails, it is almost always due to cotnact with a relatively sharp edge under load

Square knot, taught-line, figure eight, timberhitch. I rarely use anything else.

I guess not having the picture for the first try was a serious disadvantage (usually I explain it with a rope in my hands).
The left-handed bowline was the version we were taught in training. I think I´ll reconsider the use of it due to hikerdon´s post.
I agree that it´s not significantly easier for a trained person to use my way. It may just save some frustration for the untrained ones.