Link Bowline - a very simple modification of the common bowline.

[X1]

  The two "Left hand" variations of the eyeknots shown at the first posts of this thread. I would nt prefer them from their "Right hand" twins, but, for the knot-collector, every simple and secure knot should be pinned down ! 

[X1]

...akin to the EBDB, in which [the] goal was to bind the turNip with the tail wrap (loops reciprocally binding). .
...the comical moniker "bowl-in-a-bowl" in recognition of two turNips.

   We can distinguish two broad classes of those "similarly"- looking bowlines : in the first, the "EBDB" kind, the "second" nipping loop, the one tied on the "tail-side eye leg", is tied "after" the collar - and in the second, the "bowl-in-a-bowl" or "link bowline" kind (discussed in this thread) it is tied "before" the collar. ( I question the use of the term "nipping loop" in the case of  the "EBDB" kind, because the second limb of it, the tail, is not loaded - but I admit I find it hard to use this vegetarian term "turNip" !  ). 
   If we wish to help the nipping loop to retain its closed form ( to "bind" it ), the turn around its crossing point should be as powerful / tight as possible - and this purpose is better served by the much tighter "link bowline s" "second" turn. However, the main goal of the "link" bowlines was to deflect / bend the "tail-side-eye leg", to place a segment of it in an almost perpendicular direction in relation to the axis of loading, where it can be "hooked" easier - just as it happens at the "Eskimo" bowline-like eyeknots. The further "binding" of the two limbs of the nipping loop was just a bonus - the path of the "tail-side eye leg" into the knot s nub offered this opportunity, which I thought it would make no harm if it would be exploited.

   I have tied and tried ( on moderate loadings ) all possible variations of those two kinds, but I have not been able to find any major differences regarding security. Regarding strength, I have no idea. As I have mentioned time and again, without systematic laboratory tests, we can not proceed any further. If a bowline is not manifestly sound and most beautiful ( as the Lee s locked bowline, for example ), we can not argue in favour of the one or the other solution.

[X1]

 The interested reader would have spotted the similarity of one of the four variations of the Link bowline presented in this thread, with the beautiful Lee Zep X bowline (1)( see the attached pictures). The only difference is the path the second leg of the collar = the tail follows after it makes its U turn around the standing end :  In the Lee Zep X, it penetrates both loops, first the "linked" loop formed by the returning eye leg, and then the main nipping loop formed by the standing part - while at the Link 1R bowline it follows a more direct path downwards : it moves parallel to the "linked" secondary loop and it enters directly into the main nipping loop.
   In this thread I had chosen to drive the tail along the "direct" path ( although this reduces the diameter of the "linked" loop, which now encircles two, only, rope diameters, and not three, as it happens in the case of the Lee Zep X bowline ), because I wanted to force it meet the standing part s first curve ( = the rim of the main nipping loop ) directly, and at at a right angle. This way the standing end "bites" hard into the tail s body, and blocks, very efficiently, its tendency to slip out of the knot s nub. On the other hand, in the Lee Zep X bowline the tail is "buried" deep into the core of the knot, surrounded by all those segments that pass by. I do not know if this is a good thing, or if all those layers of the rope segments that go around the tail form a protective "envelope", that reduces the ability of the segment that carries the most part of the total load, the standing part s first curve, to squeeze the tail as directly and forcefully as it does in the case of the Link bowline. One needs to tie those two knots on very slippery rope, load them at the limit of the material s ultimate strength, and then see if the one is more secure than the other.

.As I have mentioned time and again, without systematic laboratory tests, we can not proceed any further.

 
1. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3908.msg23804#msg23804
   
 
 

[xarax]

   Recently. Alan Lee has tied bowlines with very wide nipping loops / first curves, encircling 4 rope diameters, one of which is very interesting : (1), also (2). That reminded me that we can tie very easy-to-remember and to tie Link bowlines, and, by duplicating the link itself, get similar very-wide-nipping-loop eyeknots. Personally, I am not even convinced that "normal": wide nipping loops, encircling  3 rope diameters, are beneficial in strength, in particular, or, in general, in anything else besides the looks of a round rope-made ring... However, I thought that 2 pictures of such a 4-rope-diameters-nipping-loop-based Link bowline will make no harm - especially to those who do not tie the knots I show, or do not even spear a f... click on them, to just have a look...

1. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4125.msg32012#msg32012
2. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4988.msg32911#msg32911