Page 88 - The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice

require. It’s all done with the fingertips and a little
wrist motion, with the same motion you use to start
the Marlingspike Hitch (see page 7).
Once you know these first three knots, you can
work with the eye of the Bowline toward or away
from you, and with or without a prop. Never again
do you have to hang outboard or hunch sideways to
get the line in a familiar orientation.
The Fingertip method is the one to use when
you want to impress someone by tying a Bowline
behind your back.

The Enhanced Bowline
The Bowline is so universally revered that people
feel they’ve done something wrong if it slips or jams.
So it’s with a sense of bewilderment and guilt that
we try to reinforce it with everything from shack-
les to duct tape, when all along the problem almost
certainly lies with the unprecedentedly slick line we
use nowadays. But a simple extra tuck, or an extra
turn before tucking, is all it takes to restore the King
of Knots to its accustomed regal security (Figure Figure 3-23A. Two-Bight Bowline. Start with the
3-23). And this also seems to lessen the Bowline’s Spilled-Hitch Bowline; after spilling the hitch, add
inclination to jam under extremes of loading. an identical hitch and spill it, too. Then pass the end
behind the standing part and through both hitches.
Slipknot Bowline This knot is less liable to slip or jam than the regular
And now, for something completely different, a knot Bowline.
startling enough to be performed purely as a trick
yet practical enough to save your life. May I intro-
duce the fabulous Slipknot Bowline (Figure 3-24).
The illustrations tell the story, but it’s hard to
believe the thing actually works until you’ve tried
it yourself. And then it’s just about impossible to
resist saying “Voilà!” as the knot appears out of
nowhere.
I once used this knot to make up to a piling at a
cleatless section of dock, in near-dark, in a crowded
marina, when a strong tide was running and our
engine wasn’t. We could have and probably should
have anchored out, but we knew the place and the
wind was right; so as I stood in the bow with Slip-
knot ready, we luffed up into the current alongside
the dock. I threw the long end around the piling,
dropped it through the Slipknot, and the Bowline Figure 3-23B. Another Bowline for slick line. Merely
capsized into being as the boat drifted back. The tuck the end back through as shown.

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