What defines a Bowline? - structure, characteristics, topology

[alpineer]

How do the debaters here classify Ashley's #1033,
the carrick loop --which begins exactly as #1010

Certainly not as a Bowline, if that's what you're getting at.

[xarax]

How do the debaters here classify Ashley's #1033,the carrick loop

   Read my lips : No collar = no bowline (*). I know you do not cosider the collar as an essential element of the bowline...but I do . I agree that the principal element is the nipping loop ( just as it happens in the case of the Gleipnir,),  but, to my mind, the collar is also un indispensable element, albeit of a lesser importance. I have seen bowlines holding with very loose collars, but not with very loose nipping loops ! 
   * Of course, by the most common definition of the "collar" (which is exactly what the bowline has - and the Gleipnir has not.) So, yes, with a collar - defined that way -, when the working end re-enters the nipping loop, it has to point to the opposite direction than when it exits from it.

[knot4u]

For those who say a Karsah Double Loop is a Bowline, do you also put a Figure 8 Double Loop in the Bowline Family?  If you don't, then how do you describe the line of distinction?

http://www.animatedknots.com/fig8loopdouble/index.php

[xarax]

do you also put a Figure 8 Double Loop in the Bowline Family?

   Read my lips : No knot-that-can-be-fully-untied-with-the-removal-of-the-tail(s) off the standing part(s) = no bowline. (1) I know that you do not consider this characteristic to be an essential element of the bowline...but I do...  

[knot4u]

Yeah, I'm not sure why you shortened an already short question.  Both parts of my question were necessary.

First part...Do you put a Karash Double Loop in the Bowline Family?  If no, then there is no need to continue.  If yes, then (Second part), what is the line of distinction between the Karash Double Loop and the Figure 8 Double Loop, such that one is a Bowline while the other is not?

I read your answer, Xarax.  Through all your rhetoric and hand waving, it is still unclear to me where the line of distinction is.  Or maybe by default you also put the Figure 8 Double Loop in the Bowline Family?

[xarax]

Do you put a Karash Double Loop in the Bowline Family?

   Make an educated guess...What does the following answer - that you have read, as you claim - does say, in a plain and CLEAR way ? Does it say that the Karash double loop IS NOT a bowline ?  

If part of a knot is a bowlne, the whole knot remains a bowline - albeit a more complex one.
   As part of the Karash loop is a bowline indeed, the whole double loop remains a bowline. Completing a knot can not erase a previously tied part of it, so, if a knot was a bowline, at one stage of its tying, it will remain a bowline, even after one adds some new parts on it.

what is the line of distinction between the Karash Double Loop and the Figure 8 Double Loop, such that one is a Bowline while the other is not?

   The reason why the Karash double loop IS a bowline, is given in the answer above, that now you have read, I hope !  
    The reason why the figure 8 Double loop IS NOT a bowline, is already repeated many times, but I would make just another attept : The figure 8 knot, tied on the eye leg of the standing part of a figure 8 Double loop, is not an unknot - it can not be removed after we remove the segment of the tail that goes through it.

No knot-that-can-be-fully-untied-with-the-removal-of-the-tail(s) off the standing part(s) = no bowline.
After a sailor has removed the tail from the eye leg of the standing part, he wants the bowline to turn onto the unknot immediatelly, so it will not run the danger to be caught somewhere, as the ship leaves the dock. So, even before the end of the line exits through the mooring ring, for example, the bowline should have been untied completely. If you are left with a figure 8. knot on your mooring line, you will probably forced to be an armchair only knot tyer, very soon !  

   Make an educated guess...What does the proceeding answer - that you have read, as you claim - does say, in a plain and CLEAR way ? Does it say that the figure 8 loop IS a bowline ?  

it is still unclear to me where the line of distinction is.

  Let me help you here a little bit, because THAT IS the most difficult point, indeed...  
  The Karash double loop IS a bowline, while the figure 8 double loop IS NOT a bowline !  
  That is a somehow CLEAR line of distinction, to me...
  Of course, you can find many other, secondary reasons why two different knots are different, I suppose... I would be nterested to learn them, too, however insignificant they might be, because any difference of two different entities can reveal something essential from the deeper identity of each of them.

Or maybe by default you also put the Figure 8 Double Loop in the Bowline Family?

  Did I say that you should have read my answers by now ? Well, this question makes me wonder if I should really be so sure !   If you could could only listen and see my "rhetoric and hand waving" to myself now...

   Knot4u, please, let us be liberated, at least for some time, from this sterile exchange of opinions ( among other things...  ) about this Karash-double-whatever, that I, personally, do not find such a clever knot... In my reply to a thread that you, too, have participated, (1), I have published the pictures of a particular dressing of a ,double loop that might be of some interest to you. Let us talk about double loops then, a very interesting and vast subject !

1) http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3046.0

[Dan_Lehman]

How do the debaters here classify Ashley's #1033,
the carrick loop --which begins exactly as #1010

Certainly not as a Bowline, if that's what you're getting at.

C'mon, you know that this cryptic answer begs the question why (not)? !

To my mind, it has exactly the central turNip that is essential
to being "a bowline" --and differs only a little in the reeving
of the tail to stabilize the knot.

So, you're on : if not "bowline", then what?
And why not ..., btw.

--dl*
====

[Dan_Lehman]

  I believe that it is a self-evident truth, that has no need for any other justification :
   If part of a knot is a bowlne, the whole knot remains a bowline - albeit a more complex one.
   As part of the Karash loop is a bowline indeed, ...

 What is this part that is a bowline, please?

   Please, read more than 1 out of 30 what I write...otherwise, you will be right to consider what you read as a "noise", I suppose.

And then, with that gratuitous admonishment, you go on to
ramble off-topic about some game-playing notions --providing
fuel to the flame that maybe only 1-of-30 of your words addresses
the issue!

When the answer sought is given only later, sans introduction,
as :

   The "Karash" bowline is... a worsened bowline, because its not-retraced-yet form is but a "twisted nipping loop" bowline.
(See attached picture) The nipping loop, being twisted and inverted like this, is only a worse nipping loop, as much of its
nipping / constricting power is lost around the U turn of the eye leg of the standing part.

WHICH IS A QUOTE FROM ANOTHER THREAD!!
You win the prize, for this.

 

Now, as far as there being some equivalence --some family heritage--
between the turNip of the bowline and this crossing knot
coyly regarded by you as merely a "twisted nipping loop",
you're on your own with this.  I don't accept it as a reasonable
distinction.  (And, as you admit, the nipping mechanics are different
between these forms.)

--dl*
====

[alpineer]

How do the debaters here classify Ashley's #1033,
the carrick loop --which begins exactly as #1010

Certainly not as a Bowline, if that's what you're getting at.

C'mon, you know that this cryptic answer begs the question why (not)? !

To my mind, it has exactly the central turNip that is essential
to being "a bowline" --and differs only a little in the reeving
of the tail to stabilize the knot.

So, you're on : if not "bowline", then what?
And why not ..., btw.

--dl*
====

If, as you suggest, Ashley's #1033 is a Bowline, then by your criteria you must also include an EyeLoop version of Ashley's #1406 Whatnot, which differs from ABoK #1034.5 only tail wise. 
That Carrick loop, in it's finished form, shows a munter base shape as it's central structure and not a nipping loop. 
As for what it is, well, I'm happy calling it a Carrick. 

alpineer

[xarax]

...as you admit, the nipping mechanics are different between these forms.)

  True, and the one is far superior to the other ! But the worse of them IS a nipping loop nevertheless ! The fact that the nipping mechanics are different, indeed, does not make the one a genuine "nipping loop" and the other a "not-nipping" loop !    Only a worse nipping loop...
   There are many other forms of more complex nipping loops we have discussed in this forum, and you, ( at least a finger of yours... ), should remember very vividly. The Pretzel double nipping loop, the Constrictor/Transom double nipping loop, etc. They are more complex, indeed, and we are not yet able to prove that they nip better than the single nipping loop, the nipping mechanics are different, indeed - but this does not turn them into "non-nipping" loops !

[xarax]

  That Carrick loop, in it's finished form, shows a munter base shape as it's central structure and not a nipping loop. 

   I agree that the Carrick loop is not a bowline, (1), but only because it does not have a proper collar, not because it does not have a proper nipping loop ! Could you, please, elaborate a little more on your statement above ? Could you also provide some pictures of a tightened Carrick loop, where we can see if we do have a nipping loop or not ?

1)http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3233.msg19430#msg19430

[Dan_Lehman]

   I agree that the Carrick loop is not a bowline, (1),
but only because it does not have a proper collar,
not because it does not have a proper nipping loop !

What happened to the maxim that if part of the knot IS a <particular_knot>
then it must remain so with the addition of other parts?  #1033 can
have a turNip just as does the bowline , and certainly has "at least
one...collar" (oh, dear, I omitted the weasel-word "proper", didn't I?)
--in fact, one can see two collars, in the loose form (which has no
crossing-knot/Munter  base).

  That Carrick loop, in it's finished form, shows a Munter base shape as it's central structure and not a nipping loop.

How does one know when the knot's "finished" ?
--might depend upon one's goals for it.  But you followed
the bait into the classification problem for this knot, to our
minds (not X's, who sees a broader concept of "nipping loop") :
the geometric form that we'd like to base classification on is
variable with tying, and perhaps with loading of some knots
set towards the boundary area between distinct forms.

.:.  I think we just shrug and acknowledge this problematic aspect,
rather than make contortions to definitions in an attempt to deal with it.

(Btw, as the carrick bend provides a better form for an eyeknot,
I don't like Ashley's use of the name here.)

--dl*
====

[alpineer]

I agree that the Carrick loop is not a bowline, (1), but only because it does not have a proper collar

IMO both the simple nipping loop and the bight collar must be present in the bowline description. I exclude the Karash from the bowline family because it also has this munter structure(which you call a "worsened" nipping loop). I submit to you that it has an "improved" nipping component due to the mechanical advantage of turning around it's S.Part(though there may be exceptions due to friction). This difference justifies a separate classification apart from the more simple nipping loop structure.   

Could you also provide some pictures of a tightened Carrick loop, where we can see if we do have a nipping loop or not ?

I'm sure that you know what it looks like xarax. If you feel that others need photos; you're so much better at that than I am.

alpineer

P.S. I don't expect you to do my "dirty work" re pictures, just that I am too busy doing other things, one of them being a post on a new method for tying the... coming soon.
 

 

[alpineer]

(Btw, as the carrick bend provides a better form for an eyeknot,
I don't like Ashley's use of the name here.)
--dl*
====

Yes, I would agree.

But you followed the bait into the classification problem for this knot

May I have some condiments with that bait, please.

alpineer

[xarax]

  #1033 can have a turNip just as does the bowline

   Last time I checked in the ABoK, ABoK#1033 could have had one, at least, "proper" collar, but it did not ! I do not believe that Ashley re-edited his book so soon !   In case you have not noticed it, ABoK#1033, variation DL, with a "proper" collar, is an already known knot, and it is called "bowline".  

...a broader concept of "nipping loop"

   We have four distinct strategies : The first is to have a broader concept of the collar, like you do, and the second is to have a broader concept of the nipping loop, like I do. The third is to have both, and the fourth is to have none of them... I will not hesitate to adopt the one or the other, or both, or none, provided this help us study better the knots we already know, and the knots we are going to learn, if we adopt any one of the those four strategies.