Page 14 - The Pocket Guide to Equine Knots

Bow Knot

Now, back to tying your shoes. You learned this knot as a youngster, but if your shoes
perpetually seem to untie themselves, perhaps you didn’t learn well. The bow knot is simply
a square knot tied with two slipped loops instead of one. The knot begins the same way,
but then you create two bights. Loop the two under and over as on the first half of the knot,

and you have a bow knot. But if you go wrong on the top half you have a granny knot with
two loops. This knot is harder to untie and less reliable.

Half Hitch

Backing up, the simple knot you tied as the first half of the square knot was actually a half
knot, though it’s also referred to as a half hitch. Pull on the longer, standing portion, and
push the knot down against the object you’re securing, and the half knot forms. Put a

different way, the working end of your rope is brought over and under the standing part, and
the load pulls on the standing part.
In many respects, the half hitch is an ingredient knot, making up part of many knots and

hitches but having little strength of its own before anything is added. I do, however, often
use a slightly stronger version of the half hitch that’s quick to tie and quick to release. It
consists simply of a single half hitch tied with the end of the rope doubled. You can tie it in
an instant with one hand. I use this as the preliminary knot for a basket hitch during packing
when I’ve put the manty in place and need to hold it and its mate on the other side briefly

while I check to see that the packs balance. (We’ll delve deeper into this procedure in
chapter 4.)

Two half hitches: a handy way to hang a bucket.

There’s another common use for the half hitch that becomes, with the help of a loop,
extremely strong. The very popular rope halters many of us use are secured by a simple
half hitch. How can this incomplete knot be strong enough to take a hard pull when a
thousand-pound horse takes issue with being tied up? The secret is that the half hitch is tied
through and around a loop built into the halter. When pressured, the half hitch jams into that

loop, tightening upon itself. Lead ropes are sometimes secured the same way to another
loop built into rope halters lying under the jaw of the horse.