By ShowMeStepByStepPublished Updated
Based on a video by Tips from a Shipwright.
The bowline puts a fixed loop in the end of a rope. Not a loop that tightens when you pull, which is what most people accidentally tie. A loop that stays exactly the size you made it, no matter how hard it gets loaded.
That is why it ends up on docks, boats and rescue lines. You can throw it over a piling or a bollard, haul on it all day, and it will still come apart in your hands when the tension comes off.
Louis Sauzedde has been rigging boats for decades and shows three ways to tie it here. Learn the first one, then pick up the second when your hands are ready.
The load in a bowline is spread across three parts of the rope coming into the knot rather than two. Only one end sits slack. That is what keeps it from binding up the way an overhand knot does after a heavy pull.
The cowboy variant, where the end comes out on the outside of the loop instead of the inside, holds fine as a loop. Do not use it to join two ropes together. Tied that way the knot can roll right off the end under load. For a loop in one rope, either version works. For joining two ropes, use a proper sheet bend.
Working through the basics? The clove hitch covers tying to a post, and the half hitch is the finishing knot that makes both of them more secure.
The bowline is one of seven knots worth knowing by heart. The other six, with the job each one is for, are at how to tie a knot.
6 steps · about 5 minutes.Check off each step as you go and your progress saves automatically.
The bowline is the loop and the knot together, not just the twist of rope holding it shut. Made properly it will not tighten down on whatever it is around, and it will not slip. Both matter if you are dropping it over a post and expecting to get it back off.
The standing part is the long side of the rope, the bit running back to whatever you are tied to. Make a small loop in it and leave yourself plenty of the short end, the bitter end, to work with. Around a forearm's length is about right while you are learning.
Tip
Make the loop with the standing part crossing over the top, not under. Get this backwards and you will finish with a knot that looks right but unties itself.
Take the bitter end and feed it up through the loop from underneath. This is the rabbit coming up out of its hole, which is how most people are first taught it and the reason the phrase sticks.
Pass the end around behind the standing part, then back down through the same loop it came up through. The rabbit goes around the tree and back down the hole. Pull on the standing part and the loop at the same time to set it.
Tip
Check the finished knot before you trust it. The bitter end should sit inside the loop, not outside it.
Once the shape makes sense, this ties the same knot in about a second and without threading the end down the hole. Hold the bitter end against the standing part, cross the standing part over, fold it back on itself, then go around and down. The loop forms as you flip it.
Tip
Practise this one until it works without looking. On a wet deck in the dark, feeding a tail through a small hole is not realistic.
Coming up on a post with no time to spare? Put a bight in the line with a loop at the bitter end before you get there. Drop the line around the piling, pass it through the loop, and pull. The whole thing inverts into a finished bowline as it comes tight.
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5 questions covering what you just read. No signup, no score saved, and you can stop after this one.
Question 1 of 5
Which part of the rope is the standing part?
Quick reference
5 questions, answers, and one-line explanations. Tap to expand.
1.Which part of the rope is the standing part?
Answer: The long side running back to whatever you are tied to
The standing part is the loaded side, and the bitter end is the short bit you work with.
2.In the rabbit method, what happens after the rabbit comes up out of the hole?
Answer: It goes around the tree, then back down the hole
Skipping the trip around the standing part leaves you with a slip knot, not a bowline.
3.What makes a bowline worth using instead of a simple slip loop?
Answer: The loop will not tighten down on what it surrounds
A fixed loop that holds its size is the whole point, especially around a post or a person.
4.Roughly how much bitter end should you leave yourself while learning?
Answer: Around a forearm's length
A forearm's length gives you enough tail to work with without wasting rope.
5.You are coming up on a piling with no time to spare. What is the trick?
Answer: Pre-tie a bight so the loop inverts as it tightens
Doing the fiddly part before you arrive means the knot finishes itself as you pull.
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