Page 172 - The Pocket Guide to Outdoor Knots

BOWLINE IN THE BIGHT

Purpose

Bearing in mind the caution given on page 64 about improvised chair knots, this
is one of those knots that might be used to haul oneself up a yacht’s mast or a

tree in need of pruning or pollarding; and—in an emergency—it could be used to

sling an incapacitated person, with one leg inserted through each loop (and, if
conscious and able to do so, the patient holding onto the rope at chest height).

Tying
Make a long bight in one end of the rope and start to tie a common bowline with

the doubled line (figure 1). Then bring the emerging bight down in front of the
knot, lifting the two lower loops forward through it, and take the bight back up

to the top of the knot (figure 2). The result is a characteristic bowline layout,
doubled throughout (except for the single line around the standing parts). As this

process does not require access to a working end, the knot may also be executed

in the middle of a long line, in other words it may be tied in the bight.

Knot lore

This knot dates back to at least 1795 when it was illustrated in Allgemeines
Wörterbuch der Marine; but it was Darcy Lever, in his Young Officer’s Sheet

Anchor (1808), who was first to publish the name bowline upon the bight.