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BOWLINE COMING UNDONE

The guys I was speaking with about the reef knot in Brittany got another bout of head
shaking when I introduced the notion of bowline not being safe for the reason of it being
prone to capsize/collapse/ get spontaneously undone / whatever.

This time I had been quite prudent. The very first thing I said was that it is not my personal
opinion, that it was what some persons were stating with great assurance on some forums,
and that I would like their opinion based on their daily experience with it.

Gist of  it is : short round of interrogation among them :
Result of the poll : they have yet to see a bowline coming undone or to hear about one
having done that.

By the way : these days I see bowlines that are visibly 'permanent fixture'.

In my youth I was taught to make it only a "temporary" loop.
One just for the duration of use. Rope has to rest too, and not stay 'deformed' needlessly ;
what is the good sense of leaving  an unused knot in a cordage ?
Do you leave hammer, saw, chisel and screwdriver lying around waiting for the next use and
came astonished at seeing them cause of accident or subject to degradation ?  

One old guy on the quay in Concarneau commercial fishermen harbour said to me :
" if you really fear it to become undone just make it "double" ".
I asked him to show me what he call "double" :  is just passing the tail again .
Example is not 'set' but left well 'relaxed'. Diagram.

This is what the US Coast Guard has to say :
http://216.18.138.197/knots/Bowline_Knot.asp  
"The bowline knot is a versatile knot and can be used anytime a temporary eye is needed
in the end of a line.
It also works for tying two lines securely together, though there are better knots for this.
An advantage of bowlines is that they do not slip or jam easily.
"
my emphasis on their words.



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"OUTSIDE" Bowline is inferior to "INSIDE" Bowline :
ANOTHER MYTH FROM COMMERCIAL FISHERMEN POINT OF VIEW
BASED ON PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE : 


I asked here and there in Brittany :
well,  they usually do the "inside tail" one but do not consider the "outside tail" one inferior
 on any point and will use an "outside" if "outside" it is that they find.

More a question of "standardising" what knot are on board and  may be of ease in making
 it induced by the handedness of the knotter. ( ? question mark here and not :  it is
 handedness belonging to knot tyer and certainly not quite improperly  to the knot )

While on the subject : some people erroneously identify as a 'left / outside tail bowline'
with a rather queer attempt at making it. (just try it with a small inert load ).
You will see it is in fact based on the granny knot.

I discovered  the following some weeks after writing :
"The standard Bowline was selected for the test, but the Cowboy or Dutch Bowline was
tested to see if there was a difference. The numbers were almost identical."

It seems that 'oral tradition/transmission' from Brittany is vindicated. Forum transmission
should be 'studied critically' and taken with a hefty dose of salt.



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SHADOW-TANGLE COMPARISON ON BOWLINE

A localised shadow (shadow-tangle) is common to the "inside tail", "outside tail" and
"Lapp" Bwl ( not to take in account the FALSE outside tail which is based on the granny )

Shadow of whole knot discriminate between 2 groups and adding the nature of crossings
everywhere discriminate four knots.


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PROPOSED EXPERIMENTS TO DO WITH BOWLINE

To those who think that a bowline is readily capsizing ("at the brush of a shroud" as I have
read - I would check the knot tyer qualification! ) or who think that a 'left'/'outside' is worse
 than a 'right'/'inside' I would like to ask that they  just go and  do these little experiments
with a right and a left bowline and draw their own conclusions based on something else
than hearsay or 'eyeread'.

Of course in many case capsizing an  unload knot is quite easy, problem is that it may be
not so easy with a loaded one.

Experiment 1   -    Experiment 2   -    Experiment 3   -   Experiment 4

I think that schematics are self-explanatory.
Green arrow is for the tensioning load you will apply to the knot.
Blue arrows are for the testing loads applied.

You may even do it  - less spectacular of course - with a precision dynamometer and
3mm cordage and small loads of 4 to 5 kilograms, just to get the 'proportion' of force you
have to use to make it capsize.



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I AM NOT SURE THESE BOWLINE ARE CONSIDERED TO BE AN
EASILY 'COMING UNDONE' KNOT  BY THOSE WHO MADE THEM.

Of course there is always the guy who is not anxiety prone about the quality of his
mooring (I have to say that this was a  temporary mooring, just for the time needed
to put the day catch on the quay)

Do you think that  this bowline is there since the last rain ( it rain very often in Brittany )
and that it gives sign of capsizing ?
or that one ?
May be that one has every sign of being a knot that capsize easily ?

Do you think that it is because it can easily undo itself that they do not even take time
to seize it ? Why lose time about it since it will be undoing itself the next minute ?
Of course silly me, it is the explanation.

Just look at this wreck ( has been laying there for at least the last 10 or 15 years) on the
right bank of la rivière d'ETEL in south Brittany.
In it I found that bowline, there since all that time, wind, rain, frost, sun...
Do you think it give any sign of coming  undone ? spontaneously ? Just a depressed Bwl
with suicidal tendencies ?;-)



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A TEASING QUESTION / ANSWER
( for some not taking any liking to the H&L, not to say an, outright dislike/distrust )

This is just to try to show  :

- - the utility of the H & L concept to regroup knots on the logical level of 'diagram'
- - its limitation once you get to the logical level of 'knot in the rope'

To differentiate between knots regrouped ( still hoping about knots cladistics ) under
one particular H&L STRuCTuRe one has to go beyond that strictly 'anatomical'
concept to get to the 'physiology', that is how the knot 'function', not how 'it is built'.

Can you tell which knot it is ?

In fact under this common (as in shared)  H&L  STRuCTuRe that make them 'equivalent'
to each other are hiding two different 'knot physiology" .

To decide which one you are seeing you need to be WEnd / SPart ( Working End /
Standing Part ) oriented as here or there, still they have a common STRuCTuRe
( this typography is to differentiate the H&L's from the usual meaning(s) given to 'structure'.)



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FREQUENTLY INSPECT YOUR CORDAGES AND DISCARD AT FIRST SIGN
OF ATTRITION.
MAY BE !


Well I am not all that sure that the guy was listening in the classroom during this lesson.
This one must have been absent too. ( Cannot resist to steal from Dan_Lehman : this is what
he, very aptly IMO, name "Velcro phase of decay".)



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ALWAYS 'STOP' OR 'SEIZE' YOUR CORDAGES .
It depends !

Some of them follow the advice.
Some do not and are not alone in doing that, or rather not doing it.

 

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Copyright 2005 Sept - Charles Hamel / Nautile -
Overall rewriting in August 2006 . Copyright renewed. 2007-2011-(each year)

Url : http://charles.hamel.free.fr/knots-and-cordages/