I respect DerekSmith's bowline variant with the tuck under and across the bight. I used the word 'merit' out of respect for the man. Depending on application (perhaps in non mission critical applications involving human life support) perhaps it does have merit.
..DerekSmith does have expertise in knotting matters...so I listen very carefully when he speaks/writes in this forum.
I don't care if the angel Gabriel came down and blew his horn over it,
you need to call a spade a spade, and be willing to put to test the assertion.
You have the material(s) to do that. And that lame tuck-through-collar/SPart-space
Bowline is an obvious dud in climbing rope; and, quite frankly, with little to recommend
it for anything, given the NUMEROUS better alternatives! Didn't you get the story
about the king who was naked? (Or the Bush administration who were lying?)
And then the wild conjecture about the Bowline vs. Sheet Bend,
in the face of ages of evidence to the contrary (in testing & usage),
and i.p. cited test data exactly relevant to the OP given in the discussion?
On the subject of the clip-in method of attaching a climbing rope to a persons harness - I have been involved in investigating several horrific cases where children have had their lives virtually destroyed - and I guess it pulls some of my heart strings. I do get emotional on this subject...sorry.
I had left this alone, but it strikes me as most dubious to find a failure in
a 'biner--ANYway loaded--with the falls that should be occurring in a climbing
gym, which I think was the scenario--esp. of young (read "light") children!?
--at their weakest, most 'biners should be amply strong enough.
You've not responded about how a climber with Half (or Twin, for that matter)
ropes ties in: what exactly is done (in the latter case, which end (bight/ends)
has the climber?) ?! (As remarked above, I could SEE a Fig.8 eyeknot as one
end's attachment, as usual; and then the 2nd rope is tied into this Fig.8,
as though making a bend to join ropes.)
The clip-in + tie-in combination
... begs the question: why ... ? Is it that the facility has pre-tied all ropes
to the 'biner, and is sure of their security, and so sees the clip as a back-up
to possible mis-tied knots (and the latter to some back-up to 'biner failure)?!
Personally, I prefer the Butterfly since its geometry allows for tri-axial loading.
Ha! Nice rumor, but hard fact ... ? Interestingly, in data published in the CMC Rope
Rescue Manual, the through-loading difference between the Butterfly & Fig.8 was
small (one can see ranges for the B. from lousy to super (Richards's, e.g., are good);
I have to wonder at the exact geometry (a question others ignore)).
Other than that, I am still actively searching for the ultimate bowline
Here's another, which seems more snug in set form than some,
and is no more cumbersome. From the Common Bowline (#1010) start,
as you present it, pg.2 fig.1,
take the tail right over the Spart-eye leg,
and back around it leftwards under BOTH eye legs,
and up around the left-/bight-side eye leg
to be tucked down BETWEEN END & HITCH CROSSING PARTS (Derek's red zone);
- - you have now formed a loop around the eye legs - -
and finish by tucking the tail down through the just formed loop,
parallel to the eye legs, working this loop as snug as possible.
.:. This version gives a GOOD curvature to the SPart, and good friction against
various parts to help keep the knot from loosening and from loosening much
(even if it loosens some).
I can't foresee that I would use the EBDB as a tie-in method for lead climbing..
but that's only MY reaction and it may well be based on flawed logic.
Well, yes, the Janus'd Cowboy Bwl is simpler & quicker, I agree.
I am still trying to understand WHY the Yosemite Bowline (YoBowl) has become so popular
Monkey see, monkey do. If the knot gets the press, it can get more
in a nothing-succeeds-like-success fashion. Why was the "cordelette"
anchor structure so popular? It had some popular, big-name advocates
(viz., John Long), and as such things typically don't get pushed to the
extremes that might reveal deficiencies, who really knows ... ? To me,
and to some others, it seemed obvious that in many cases one would
be loading a single anchor point rather than distributing force to three;
but only upon doing testing for the 2nd edition of his
Climbing Anchorsbook did John do testing that documented this shortcoming. (Heck, I even
had a special cordelette powerpoint knot published in
Outdoor Knots,
which, btw, was a bowline of sorts.) So, the YoBowl gets known and
insofar as there are non-Fig.8-eyeknot tyers, it gets some popularity.
Authors do a lot of copying, too--uncritically--, which is vastly easier
than researhc. E.g., the --as GBudworth-titled article leads me to call it--
Wot?knot was repeatedly published and botched or modified over a
century by many authors, and none of the variations made a decent
knot--and some were outright comical--, but if one were to measure
sucess by publication, the Wot?knot succeeded for much longer than
it should have (it shouldn't have received any press).
Will sift through all the Bowline variations therein...
That's a very lame sight, geesh.
You are "still searching", but I've yet to see your attempt at the Mirrored
Bowlines. How hard of a search is this? Take the Cow /Girth Hitch as
a base; do the bowline maneuvreing with the tail on both sides, in the
fashion of the slow-tie method ("rabbit round the tree"); this is child's
play, and I'm impressed that the Search for the Holy Bowline hasn't
managed it yet (a bowline with two rabbit holes, no less!). Alice in
Wonderland, it might put a Cheshire Cat smile in your spirit! This is
a loose-looking knot (various versions) w/good resistance to untying;
might have a bit of shock absorption, to boot. (AND it can give Derek
TWO GeeWhizSpots to color!)
--dl*
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