How to Tie a Bowline Knot

Before you tie anything, look at the shape you are after. A bowline is a fixed loop in the end of a line, and the whole thing is the knot, not just the part that binds it together. Louis holds one up so you can see the loop hanging open below the knot.

That open loop is the point. It stays the size you made it no matter how hard the line gets pulled.

Hold the standing part in one hand and the bitter end in the other. Make a small loop in the standing part with the tail lying across the top of it.

This little loop is the hole the rabbit comes out of. Get it facing the right way now and the rest of the knot falls together. Get it backwards and you will end up with a slip knot that runs.

Here is the version most people learn first. The rabbit comes up out of his hole, goes around the tree, gets scared, and goes back down his hole.

In rope terms: bring the bitter end up through the loop, pass it behind the standing part, then send it back down through the same loop. Say the rabbit line to yourself the first dozen times. It sticks.

Pull the tail and the standing part away from each other to snug everything down. The knot body should tighten while the loop underneath stays exactly the size you built it.

Give the standing part a hard haul and watch the loop. If it shrinks, you tied something else and you should start over.

Once the rabbit makes sense, learn this one. Keep hold of the bitter end the whole way through, cross the standing part, fold it over, then go around and down the hole.

Nothing gets threaded through anything. You never let go of the tail, which is what you want when the deck is wet and the line is under your arm.

Same start, but the tail wraps around the far side of the standing part instead. What you get is called a cowboy bowline, and it looks close enough to the standard one that most people never notice which they tied.

Dropped over a piling as a plain loop, it holds about the same. Louis is honest that he would call it a perfectly good bowline in that use.

Now the part worth remembering. The binding section of a bowline is tied the same way as a sheet bend, which is the knot for joining two ropes together. Louis brings in a black line against the tan one so you can follow both ends at once.

Tied cowboy style and loaded as a bend, that knot can be worked right out of itself. He capsizes it on camera. Fine for a loop over a bollard, not fine for tying two lines together and walking away.

This is the trick that makes the whole video worth watching. Take a bight in the line and put a loop around it near the bitter end, so half the knot is built before you need it.

You do this standing on the bow while the piling is still coming at you, not while you are reaching for it.

Throw the line around the piling, pass it through the loop you already made, then haul on the standing end.

The knot turns itself inside out and sets as a finished bowline. One pull, tied off, and you never had to fiddle with a tail one-handed over the water.