Throwing a Bowline©

 

I will be away this weekend, and so here is a vacation-time special on how to tie one of the most important knits – the bowline. 

 

The bowline is used to make a fixed loop at one end of a line that won’t slip, and it can be used to moor boats, hoist, haul, and fasten one rope to another.  This knot holds up best if there is constant pressure pulling against the knot, although paradoxically, this is also its main flaw as it cannot be tied, or untied, when there is a load on the “standing end”, the end of the rope that is not being used in the knot you are tying (the opposite end to the “running end”).

 

You can tie a bowline, or you can “throw” it, which simply means that you use a flowing, throwing motion to quickly wrap the rope into a bowline.  And by quickly, J. E. Weber, the author of “Throwing a Bowline”, states that it takes a practiced, “old salt” just a second and a half to throw this knot.

 

This method of knotting a bowline is similar to a method that was shown to me by a member of the U.S. Coast Guard, which I demonstrated in a video called “How to tie a bowline around your waist, one-handed”, HERE.

 

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That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Sources

 

Weber, J. E.; “Throwing a Bowline”, Motor Boating, July 1966, page 38, https://books.google.com/books?id=0yXNIcE7uxYC&pg=PA38&dq=%22throwing+a+bowline%22+%22motor+boating&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjGipC7p9CIAxXfKlkFHfnONtYQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=%22throwing%20a%20bowline%22%20%22motor%20boating&f=false, accessed September 19, 2024

 

Wikimedia, “Bowline knot”, March 9, 2008, by Markus Bärlocher, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palstek_innen.jpg, accessed September 18, 2024