I started to think about X1 the other night and just picked up some cord and started playing with knots. Then I was fiddling about trying to tie X1’s many marvelous creations.
Somewhere along the way I got lost - then tried fiddling with a Bowline.
I ended up with the creation in the photos - and I’m sure X1 has tied these before - just that I can’t find it. After hunting through many of his posts my eyes started bleeding so I just thought darn it…just photograph it and post it on this forum.
X1, I present this connective eye knot to you for analysis.
Forgive me if you already have tied and analysed it.
The most interesting thing is that this Constrictor-like “collar structure” is so efficient, that we do not even need a ""closed nipping loop !
See the attached pictures for a loop where the “nipping structure” is but an open helix.
I do like this knot - it seems (at first instance) to be secure and stable.
I haven’t carried out any load testing to check if it is prone to jamming. If it is a structure that is prone to jamming, I wouldn’t be all that interested in pursuing any further analysis of it…
Did dfred inspire you to create this knot? Or was it something you were already investigating?
ss369 comments that the connective eye loop is difficult to adjust (ie resize). I take his point but, with practice, it hasn’t been a show-stopper for me.
Have you thought about any proposed applications for it?
Does it fit within the Bowline family - that is, does its structure conform to the requirements to be properly classified as a ‘Bowline?’
If we open this Pandora s box, we meet many bowline-like loops. The security of the common bowline is enhanced, that is for sure, but its marvellous simplicity and its spirit has gone... and that makes me wonder why one should tie those loops, and not any other of the many non-bowline end-of-line loops.
See the attached picture, for one such loop, where the Columbus egg of SS369 has been replaced by a constrictor-around-the-standing-part "8" shaped hitch. We can also tie an even more secure double, crossed-coils version of this loop,
I believe that dfred s intention was to tie a Clove hitch around a midline nipping loop - although he had also tried the Constrictor : " Many variations are possible here, including a Constrictor instead of a Clove hitch. I didn’t identify anything simpler and less bulky than a clove hitch though "
I remember that I was trying to secure further a bowline-like loop, in which the “proper” collar has been replaced by a “Myrtle” collar. To prevent the “walking” of the nipping loop downwards, I thought I had to use a very tight hitch, like the Constrictor or the Strangle. As you see at the pictures, the “tails” are always crossed underneath the rim / riding turn of the nipping loop. On the contrary, in dfred s and your variation, the “tails” are not crossed. We have to rest all those variations, to see if they are really important or not.
Good question ! It is certainly a “PET” knot ( post eye tiable - a term suggested by Dan Lehman ). It also looks like a “Janus” bowline. However, its “collar structure” is very different from the “proper” collar of either a common or an “Eskimo” bowline. If the nipping loop is the characteristic element of the bowline, then yes, it is a bowline. If the nipping loop and the “proper” collar of “the” bowline are essential, then no, it is not.
The trouble with especially these, what I’ve chosen to call, “anti-bowlines” is that their initially apparent nipping loop
has a tendency to elongate into an obvious helix,
and this makes it harder to maintain the definition --as the
latter structure doesn’t so surround & compress contained
parts as does the former.
I should note that the only place I’ve seen the basic knot
–shall we call it, mimicking the qualifier for the bowline,
"the common anti-bowline?!-- is in one article published
in Knotting Matters (where the monikers offered were “Swedish bowline” / “bollard loop”), and in a photograph copied
in a book, credited to Samson Ropes, of some sailboat line :
“common” indeed, ha!
If one capsizes the constrictor around its own line (make first
the knot as though making a noose hitch, then capsize to make
an eye knot), the result is either this common anti-bowline
or the Myrtle looop --depending on which end of the constrictor
was loaded. That’s an interesting pair of simple, bowlinesque knots.
With similar thinking, working in the opposite direction with
one of the knots here --where the constrictor sits within a loop–
gets a novel result (but not the double anti-bowline).
Capsizing a double contrictor gets close to something above,
but with a difference of crossing in the center of the loop.
I believe that it was you who had tied any knot that exists in this universe - and in any other parallel to it !
I am only riding Rocinante, not a unicorn, remember ?
The loopknot was recently featured in the IGKT’s Knotting Matters
(km83:33), and called the “Bollard Loop” or “Swedish Bowline”.
If you tie a bowline with the fast method in which one casts a
turn in the SPart with the end after forming a simple or overhand
knot, but instead of this last formation take the end away from
the eye and bring back the SPart into the turn, you are in a
position to make what I’ll call an “anti-bowline”–based on it
being a structure with a similarly nipping turn of the SPart like
the bowline’s, but with the end entering this SPart loop from
the opposite side as it does for the bowline.
Sometimes the knot is tied with the end on the other side of
itself from what you show; this is less secure, but might work
well in a particular material, and it also presents the end alongside
the SPart for easy tucking (through SPart lay) or seizing. It’s
this other version that is in the cited Japanese finish to some
binding knot–the symmetric version.
As noted above, under some conditions, these knots might
slip by the SPart feeding out from the eye (turning around
the end’s turn), or they might–ironically–jam uncomfortably
tight (though really the loading is more pulling the knot open
than tight). I’ve seen the knot in 8-9mm nylon braided crab
line, where presumably it was used because like the Bwl it
could be tied after forming the eye, and unlike the Bwl it
could be jammed snug (in that material–lots of luck with
a hard PP rope!).
One can make a couple turns with the end, or SPart.
Calling it part of a “Constrictor family” is wrong–it’s hardly
that, even if by some manipulation it can form a C..
Now, why’s it been hiding from alllll of these knots books??
–dl*
====
One reply to the above, to answer the question, of why
we don’t see more of this knot, asserted that it wasn’t
a good knot; that reply seems to miss the contents of
books, then --and the value of the given knot.
And I recall the similar anti-bowline with the end helix
turning towards the SPart and not the eye being tied
in one (or more) dock line of a lobster boat (in multi-strand
braided CoEx PP/PE line) but with the tail taped (IIRC).
This variant has a nice appearance but I think is less
secure, less stable --maybe nicer in a lanyard.
The bad stuff you see below is derived from some solutions that time ago I had originally tried as some possible retucking for the Inuit / Eskimo “Bowline”:only at a later time I wondered what would happen applying some of these retuckings to the knot’s nub of a common Bowline.
This thread by X1 http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4314.0 ,reminded me(in a somehow)of the distortion undergone by the original collar of the Bowline applying this type of retucking: the problem is that, in the case of these retuckings, even the nipping turn undergoes a distortion, which moreover is much more radical than that sustained by the collar, especially as regards the overall functioning of the knot: in essence the nipping turn literally disappears, giving way to a sort of distorted crossing knot oriented in a similar way as occurs in the Tugboat"Bowlines":So, instead of opening a new thread “Bowline transformation reminded me by X1”, I decided to use this thread opened by agent_smith to submit this stuff to your curiosity and possible opinion: If this stuff is for throw away and forget,not let scruples to tell me!
The crossing knot form depends upon the (red) collar… which is ready to open up, dragging its weakly secured tail along with it. Moreover, this collar, collars the standing end from the wrong side.
So, this suggests an easy improvement : Reverse the whole thing, put it upside down, connect the tail with the standing end to make the eye, cross the past and the present tails a little bid… and you get a secure, nice crossing knot bowline ! ( See the attached pictures )
Yes, but in doing so you are back to playing beyond the river, in Eskimo territory, right to where I started!
I am aware that this type of retuckings are more suited for the Inuit / Eskimo (variation B mostly), and I also played “cut the second leg and join it to the tail”, arriving at something like(but I had never done the “pretzel”,it seems very “appetizing”!)".If I proposed a couple of these retuckings in “common Bowline sauce”, it was more as a curiosity, because intrigued me as,in this case, a single retucking can completely change the essence of the knot (but maybe I’ll settle for little to intrigue me!),so I’m the first to think that it will not spending words to defend these little monsters(but they seemed robust with respect to the ring loading …and.. :D).
Perhaps I misunderstood you, but I thought that this was your purpose… I tried to save a would-like-to-be crossing knot bowline from opening up, due to this weakly secured upper collar leg/tail.
The “Pretzel” was only a way to secure the second leg/tail even further - you can omit it if you wish. In general, when the tail enters into the nipping loop, one can hardly resist the temptation to pass it in between the first curve of the standing part or/and the returning eye leg.
Ring loading comes AFTER the normal loading ! If you load your knots while you have not yet tightened the collar structure very much, you will see that the second leg of the higher collar will not be able to participate in the stability of the nipping loop very much. It seems that the higher collar is more weak and less helpful to the overall integrity of the structure than the lower one, so that was the reason I turned the knot upside down.
I have not studied the crossing knot (-)bowlines as much as I believe I should had to - maybe because they are not a-la-mode in this Forum ! However, I believe they are very interesting, very robust eyeknots, which deserve a more detailed examination. The more complex nipping structure offers many “steps” and “handles” to the collar structure, which, by its turn, can be “hitched” upon it in many secure ways.
( I should also mention that, by “crossing knot” eyeknots, I tend to mean the eyeknots where the standing part cross itself in more than one points. So, by this definition, the “Eskimo” bowlines may be (-) bowlines, but they are not “proper” crossing knot eyeknots… :))
