Bull Hitch is identical to how I imagine the EStar hitch should be tied.
I agree ! It
should had been tied this way - but had it ? A knot tied in one way is not the same as a knot tied in another ! Geometry tells if two knots are the same knot, not topology. We have many cases where topologically identical knots are completely different - see, for example, the case of the "
bistable knots" (1). The
simple-hitch-a-la-Gleipnir, tied the "other" way, is a completely "other" knot, a
different knot ! Notice that the corresponding "bridge" of the nipping turn is "free" there, too - if you "reverse" the wraps of the hitch, and tie it so that the "bridge" is in between the nub and the surface of the pole, i.e., if you tie it "upside down" ( or "inside out" ), you do not have such a tight hitch any more.
1.
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4201P.S. To better appreciate the great difference, tie both hitches around a thicker pole. The fact that "
EStar hitch" is always shown tied around a carabiner or a ring, explains why many people - and, perhaps, the author of
this Estar hitch, too - had not realized how different those two knots are... Another reason may be the fact that,
this EStar hitch was conceived as a doubled ( = two wraps ) Buntline hitch - while the Bull Clove hitch was conceived, right from the start, as an improved, tighter Bull hitch, where the already double nipping "neck" is replaced by an even tighter ( almost jamming ! ) Clove hitch "neck".