Simple lock for the bowline

[SS369]

One of the things about the Janus style of bowline is that it looks able to be effected by ring loading as does another simpler version of the Yosemite style.

I think that any "simple lock" for the standard bowline ought improve one or all its foibles. Some of these variations do, e.g, increased diameters within the nipping area and the same for at the entry into the knot.

So which is the most secure, most stable and least detrimental example in every conceivable application with the highest expectation of being untied?

SS

[xarax]

One of the things about the Janus style of bowline is that it looks able to be effected by ring loading...

  Is this a fact you have noticed ? It would be nice if we could get rid of the so many Janus bowlines (32 , to my latest counting...(1))  The huge number of all the possible bowlines would not be greatly reduced, that is true, given its estimated magnitude, but it would be some gain nevertheless...

1) http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3150.msg19418#msg19418

[Sweeney]

Having just posted on the thread about bight-to-bight bends I started looking at the normal sheet bend and then the bowline. To make a bowline more secure it is usual to try and stop the end from slipping eg the round turn bowline or the water bowlie add extra turns to the nipping loop. But what if the collar above the knot were made using a girth hitch/bull hitch/clove hitch around the standing part before being tucked through the nipping loop? This may be pushing the name bowline too far but am I missing something obvious?

Barry

[SS369]

Hi Barry,
as far as pushing the "bowline" name too far, that remains to be seen. I personally think that it has been pushed over the edge, but that is a topic already started. "What defines a Bowline?".

I find that adding any more entanglements (yours and others) at the SP collar location a bit fiddly to dress, the expected addition of more security just doesn't seem to manifest itself.
I notice that some of these impart more severe curves at the SP entry area.
With the exception of just tying an overhand around the SP in the place of the collar and tucking the working end down through the nip as usual. Which is pretty secure, btw.
Check this out please.

SS

[xarax]

what if the collar above the [nipping loop] were made using a girth hitch/bull hitch/clove hitch around the standing part, before being tucked through the nipping loop?

... just [tie] an overhand around the SP in the place of the collar and tucking the working end down through the nip as usual.

   I like all those solutions, and I have to admit that, although they might seem obvious to many people, they have never not crossed my mind as improvements of the bowline... Probably because, in the cooperation of nipping loop-collar pair that characterizes the bowline , I tend to see the nipping loop as the primary structure, that needs/can/should be a little more complex, ( than the common nipping loop of the common or Eskimo bowline ) , and the collar as the secondary structure, that needs/can/should remain as simple as possible. The loops that belong to the bowline family secure the tail by the nipping action of their nipping loop, and it is natural for one to think that he can improve the bowline by improving this nipping action, i.e., by adopting a more complex nipping loop. Now, a more complex collar does not need the nipping loop at all - or, to be more precise, it does not need the nipping loop as a nipping structure, but only as an obstacle on the standing part, that will prevent the collar to slip alongside the line. Personally, I believe that this type of knots might well be very secure, indeed, but they do not follow the spirit of the bowline... so I would not define them as fixed end-of-line loops that belong in the bowline family.

[SS369]

Yes the nipping loop is the primary in so far as the tying (the way I tie it), then the collar, secondary in the rest of the tying of the common (standard) bowline. But in use, the common bowline needs both to stay together for use as a fixed loop knot.
Without either it would not be the bowline.
But I do agree that the nipping ring does the majority of work in this knot.

I believe that the overhand collar and the reverse tucked working end submitted, do the task very simply without negative consequences and simply.
A simple lock for the bowline.

SS

[Dan_Lehman]

One of the things about the Janus style of bowline is that it looks able to be effected by ring loading

Take care in your typing --only "affected" makes sense here.
But, then, you're not saying much, even so?  I presume that
you want to say that some "Janus" bowline remains vulnerable
to ring-loading as does the common bowline (#1010)?
But, then, other versions are as resistant as the so-called cowboy
bowline --which in that loading is a Lapp bend.

I recently came across a rockclimbing site in which it was recommended
to belay from a tie-in eye, ring-loaded --in the particular case, it was the
fig.8 eye knot (both with & without a strangle knot tie-off).

So which is the most secure, most stable and least detrimental example
in every conceivable application with the highest expectation of being untied?

   Um, lemme get back to ya on this!   

[SS369]

Quote:" Take care in your typing --only "affected" makes sense here." Your advice is warranted, thank you Dan.   But, I swear it was the keyboard's fault. 

Mind you that I have formed my opinions based on some of the reading here and by hand testing at home and field use in regards to the subject of ring loading.
For me it is not much of an issue since I do not use the bowline, modified or not, that would force the issue, but in the quest for better and better knotting I bring this up. Other threads are more to that point.
The topic being a simple lock for the bowline (presuming the "standard" one), I have presented offerings (2).

Looking forward to you getting back to me.

SS

[xarax]

  If we are going to accept complex collar-like structures going through and/or around the bowline s nipping loop, we enter into a whole new area of bowline-like fixed end-of-line loops. Although they are based on - and they are more secure than - the common bowline, I believe that they do not belong to the bowline family of knots, because of the absence of a bowline "proper" collar. The complex "collar"-like structures of those loops do not need the nipping loop to restrain the slippage of the tail through them, but only to restrain their own slippage alongside the standing part. In other words, first the tail is secured by a knot - be it an overhand knot, or any other hitch tied around the standing part - and then that knot is secured by the presence of the nipping loop, so it remains fixed on a certain point alongside the standing part.
   If we open this Pandora s box, we meet many bowline-like loops. The security of the common bowline is enhanced, that is for sure, but its marvellous simplicity and its spirit  has gone... and that makes me wonder why one should tie those loops, and not any other of the many non-bowline end-of-line loops.
   See the attached picture, for one such loop, where the Columbus egg of SS369 has been replaced by a constrictor-around-the-standing-part "8" shaped hitch. We can also tie an even more secure double, crossed-coils version of this loop, similar to the one shown at :
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3020.msg20613#msg20613

[SS369]

Well, Columbus probably dropped his egg, as I have done quite a few times. ;-)

Although I like this latest offering, it isn't quite a simple lock for the bowline.

I just tied it and personally didn't find it as easy as some to size the loop portion, but that would come with familiarity most likely.
One thing that does concern me is the untie-ability. I loaded it with hand and foot force and had to work pretty hard to undo it. (3/8' aborist rope 8 strand braided sheath.)  I can only imagine the effort after a working load.

I think in this post we should stay within the confines of the "standard" bowline configuration and design a simple lock.

SS

[xarax]

   Columbus, your overhand knot - and, indeed, ANY sufficiently convoluted hitch that will absorb the full load of the eye leg of the bight - will be hard to untie, too. That is an other advantage of he bowline, lost , along its simplicity and spirit, with the hitch-through-and-around-the-nipping-loop solutions of Sweeney and Columbus...
   I have tried an overhand knot that will encircle the rim of the nipping loop as well, as it happens with your previous solution. Such a knot can be dressed in a number of ways, but I believe that, for all those complex "collar"- like structures tied on and around the nipping loop, a sufficiently heavy load will "lock" them more that we wish !   

[SS369]

Ah yes, but he did find the new land. Well, new to him at least.

I have given the two simple securing methods I spoke of and the constrictor composite you've offered and put them through the same test using three different cords and rope.
1. Titan 5.5mm, all were easy to untie.
2. The original 3/8 inch aborist's rope, all untied with ease except the constrictor composite.
3. BW 11mm static, all untied, the constrictor composite difficult to set.

That said, the knot first posed by me (Reply #19) is the only one that I consider a now more secure "common/standard/most everyone knows" bowline as I thought the OP was querying about.

SS

[xarax]

  He thought he had discovered the west India(es) ! 
  How do you exlain those differences ? Are they due to the material, or to the particular material-diameter combination ?

[SS369]

Hi xarax,

For the Titan 5.5mm cord I would say the material and its construction. Very tight sheath and hard core material.
The 3/8 aborist's rope I suspect the weave of the sheath being coarse.
The 11mm static rope I would say the diameters versus the load I could bring to bear using my ad hoc test.

So a simple lock for a bowline can be in part dependent on the material used and its particular construction and that should be a consideration, always.

If I can find some decent laid rope, I will try the tests on it.

SS

[xarax]

   One thing is certain with knots, life is not as simple as it looks...Sailing straight into the west was a lot easier, because, in a round Earth, you knew in advance that you could not but reach India - eventually...You tie a knot, and you do not know if it will slip, if it will jam, if it will be considered a "practical" knot or not...
   What a mess !