...provides a little bigger surface area patch with its three lobes against the contact area around the hole that the rope goes through. It acts as a washer (nut and bolt variety) per se.
The Double Torus has a flatter bottom, and sits better on it, that is true. Moreover, if we examine them as pure stoppers ( not as a "halves" of a Fisherman s -like sliding / interpenetrating bend ), the Standing part of the Double Torus stopper is less offset than the Standing part of the Whaler s stopper, and that is an advantage.
I believe the difference between the two knots is due to the conditions they were met in the first place.
I stumbled on the Whaler s stopper, when I tried to enhance the central hook-to-hook arrangement of the ex-tails in Dan Lehmans enhanced,
hooked and blooded Fisherman s knot, and I realized that a more convoluted entanglement of those ex-tails would nt be much different, regarding complexity, from two separate overhand knots, placed in the same row with the parent ones. After all, Dan Lehman hooked the ex-tails in the middle of the two halves of a Fisherman s knot, for no other reason than to convolute the parent Fisherman s knot more, by adding U turns in the paths of the Standing parts - those hooks are squeezing, they are not pulling each other. So, I imagined Dan Lehmans two-and-two halves overhand knots in a raw, i.e., almost three knots in a raw, become four knots in a raw, i.e., two pairs of two overhand knots in a raw. All this time, I was thinking of knots that can be used as the halves of an enhanced Fisherman s like sliding / interpenetrating knot, not of knots that can be used as pure stoppers. I tried to use the openings of the overhand knots that seemed to me be most efficient in nipping the Tail ends, those that offered a direct contact with the other link s fist curves, and I reserved the central openings ( which, as I had explained, are not very effective in choking any line that penetrates them ), for the passage of the other link s Standing Parts. I had not paid any attention to the form of the "base" of the two halves, because I though that, by siting on each other s bottom ( and NOT on a flat surface ), they will have as ample a support as they will need.
You met the Double Torus by spotting the possible disadvantages of the Whaler s stopper,
as a stopper, not as a half of an enhanced
hooked and blooded Fisherman s knot. So, you compared it, right from the start, to other stoppers, and you thought of ways to improve its "base" and eliminate any problems it might present with its offset Standing End. In other words, you had searched for a better stopper, not a better half of a Fisherman s-like sliding / interpenetrating knot, so you chose the central openings of the overhand knots for the Standing and Tail ends. You imagined that, this way, the first overhand knot would present a more stable and better balanced "base" for the stopper to sit on.
It may be the case that a better stopper makes a better half of a Fisherman s -like knot - but it also may be not ! The overhand knots in a properly tied Fisherman s knot do not have "bases' perpendicular to the axis of the knot. They kiss each other almost perfectly, and they benefit from the wide and balanced area of mutual contact, although they do not sit on each other s bottom the way they would sit on a flat surface.
If those stoppers are used as halves of Fisherman s like bends, they may behave differently, than if they are used as pure stoppers. KnotGod knows what will happen between four overhand knots in a row, squeezed upon each other by the huge forces a Dyneema line can withstand ! Only tests can tell if those stoppers will hold ( I
hope they will...), and, if they do, which will break latter, in a higher percentage of MBS of the unknotted line, than the other.
