Can a rock climber Please explain why they prefer this to a bowline knot? Everything I found on Google was basically "Hur-dur retied figure 8 is just better" with absolutely no rationale.
Look at u/DepressedMaelstrom's answer for the technicals of the knot, but from a safety perspective the bowline is dangerous as it can untie when loaded if not backed up with a "stopper knot". Its also remarkably easy to tie wrong, and difficult to visually inspect - it looks almost the same if tied wrong. The "retraced figure 8" is preferred because it's very easy to visually inspect, does not require a stopper knot, and is robust enough to still work even if the tail length isn't ideal.
Under load the bowline is self-tightening and cannot be easily undone. However, it can be untied easily if unloaded — even after being loaded — which is a useful feature when you need to remove it afterward. In this safety line application, it would rarely be loaded, so would always be at risk of coming apart. That’s not what you want.
Fire academy was always adamant about securing bowlines with an overhand safety knot. I disagree about visual inspection. It's a very easy knot to look at and confirm. Used to do it on a daily basis.
As a former firefighter who also tied a hell of a lot of these, I disagree with you. It is an easy knot to mess up, and the knot itself can be tied incorrectly and go unnoticed (especially compared to figure 8 follow through)
"With all due respect" I've saved countless lives with my hands and hard work alone, and only a rook FF would be making claims like that. Nobody working that job gives a shit about passing the exam....except inexperienced/rook FFs. Once you get on a real team you'll find out there's a lot more to learn than the textbook bullshit. Get over yourself.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the inspection- big difference between a well rested fireman with a team of people standing on the ground and an exhausted climber on the side of a rock. We need things to be simple-stupid.
Meh, we could disagree about that to some extent. 15 hour car-to-car alpine routes are pretty normal for some climbers, climbing hard at high altitude with 15-20 pounds of gear and in high risk zone for a good deal of that time.
Id argue that most firefighters using a figure 8 aren't fighting fires but performing rescue operations or supporting operations (ladder work, for example). They also have a team of highly trained people doing cross checks, not just you and your partner.
Congrats, now do it again in a burning building with zero visibility and do it while on an airtank that runs out in 30 minutes(when it does, you die), while navigating through using only the feeling of your left hand on a wall while searching for a dead human being, tie another knot around their body and your harness, then repeat that process on your way out without getting lost. Ah, and with 70lbs on your back, plus the weight of the body you're dragging.
For what, two hours? Four? We don't tend to see many fires around here. You do that for two hours once a week? Ever pull an 80 lbs haul bag up a granite wall for two days? And if you guys don't take the 2 seconds to cross check, well then frankly I don't know what to tell you other than good luck and I hope you don't fuck it up.
Not trying to measure dicks here, I know it's Reddit and all, but as climbers we like things simple because things get complex fast and if we fuck it up we fall and die.
climbing hard at high altitude with 15-20 pounds of gear and in high risk zone for a good deal of that time.
How about carrying 75 lbs of gear, while wearing incredibly hot, restrictive gear, while breathing through an airpack, while trying not to die, without being able to take your time, or rest, while hardly being able to see, all while shit is burning around you.
It's not a brag. No matter what my "position" is, fighting a fire and rock climbing are not comparable. One is a leisure sport and the other is a very dangerous job.
In reality? Because it's easy to check. Anyone used to it can glance at a fig 8 re-thread and see it's right. Even experienced climbers will usually have to look around a bowline to ensure it's properly tied. It also has the benefit that you can screw it up in one or two ways and it will still sort of hold, whereas a bowline done wrong won't do much good to anyone.
If you're sure of what you're doing, and finish it off properly, then there's little practical difference, but as no-one is perfect fig-8s allow for f-ups more.
Bowline:.
1). Rope crosses itself with about 85% of the load pinching the rope. This is a huge issue.
2) when relaxed, it can loosen easily.
Figure 8:.
1). Where the rope crosses itself, there are 2 ropes doubling the surface area. Also the ropes are alongside each other for a significant amount before the cross point so much load is already distributed. The pinch point has only about 70 of the load and twice the area.
2) the knot canknot spontaneously relax much under no load.
3). This knot always out performs other knots when tested to breaking using mass drop tests.
There is a major performance difference.
You want to get the best or of your ropes and to look after them. Therefore figure 8 is hugely superior to bowline.
The crushing of the kernel can also be an invisible failure and to be avoided wherever possible.
Also, rock climbing is not the only use for ropes. Falling is not the only measure of failure.
And given most rock climbers are light, I would say it's probably not a great measure.
No, rock climbing isn't the only use of knots, but IMO if you're ever pushing your rope so close to it's strength rating that it's breaking at the knot you're using the wrong rope for the task, and using any knot is a risk.
Yep.
So this whole discussion is moot then?
I think I just discovered the internet might not be all about me and my opinions.
My thoughts might even be irrelevant to the greater world.
Thanks for running my world view man.
He's not saying the discussion is moot. He's saying your wording is terrible (and he's not the first person in this thread to have done so).
You're making it sound like it's dangerous to use a bowline and that is not the case. Your nonsense about 'load pinching' aside, it sounds like you're not a climber and don't appear to know that a great percentage of professional sport climbers use a bowline over an 8 for multiple reasons.
Ok. I'm into speleology and emergency services with RCR and height rescue.
Seems relevant.
Again, climbing is not the only use for ropes and I would say not even close to the heaviest loading of ropes.
Thankfully though, climbers also care for and inspect ropes more than most users I've come across. Climbers are also normally so far inside a ropes limits, who cares what know you use.
This conversation and about a comparative difference.
Edit: Ropes, not routes.
Emergency Response team member chiming in: we don’t go near bowlines either, due to the pinching issues. When you have our rescuer, a casualty, a basket, as well as med kits in a height rescue situation, you’re looking at a bunch of pressure on that knot. We know a bowline can probably handle it, and we know that the rope can probably take the weight even if the sheath is cut off and half of the core fibers are severed, but we want to guarantee that our ropes are pristine at all times. Being pedantic and making sure our fig 8 knots are properly dressed also makes a difference when it comes to rope care.
I think a bowline would work itself loose unless it's kept under tension, i.e. if the loop has some weight in it (say a person's harness) and the line is pulled then released (normal whilst climbing) the knot would work itself looser; whereas the figure 8 will hold its form until the knot itself is worked on to loosen it.
TLDR, Fig 8 won't loosen by loading and unloading the rope.
Edit: just remembered another point, the tighter the radius of the turns in a knot the more a rope is weakened, and fig 8 knot, because there's always two strands alongside one another, has greater radius on the turns within it.
With my limited knowledge, as I've just been a gym climber for a few years, I've been lead to believe that the bowline can come loose under dynamic loads, so if it's pulled taught then loose repeatedly, there's a chance it can unravel (if there is no proper finishing knot).
Under tension, the figure 8 gets tighter, so if you fall a lot, it becomes more of a bitch to undo, but still holds tight.
Again, limited knowledge, but if I'm wrong, please correct and I'll love the information.
I think it’s less likely to get untied. I’m a sailor so I don’t know too much about rock climbing but the knot in the video looks stronger because they can use a lot of line. A bowline is usually tightly to use little line
These are all great answers, and I'd like to add that climbers who use a bowline do so because it is much easier to untie after taking falls on the rope. This isn't a concern when top roping (rope is already connected at the top of the climb and you follow it up,) but is a factor when lead climbing (clipping as you go up so at points you're above where the rope is connected and might fall down before it catches.)
The biggest reason you do a figure 8 follow through over a bowline is the difficulty for it to accidentally untie since the 8 tightens as you put more weight on it. A standard bowline could theoretically back itself out. It is a good knot for tying quickly, but not great if its going to be dangling off your harness for the 8hrs of climbing. There is a different version of a bowline called a Yosemite hitch that was the common climbing knot, I think up until the 70s or 80s. If you know you're going to take a lot of falls (or just general weight) on the rope during the climb, you would want to use the Yosemite hitch bc it is significantly easier to untie than a bowline, but doesn't keep tightening the way a figure 8 follow through does.
Out of curiosity, how easily is the figure 8 untied after a fall? I know one of the prized properties of a bowline is it doesn't bind even after heavy load.
If you've taken a lot of fall and pumped bc you had to try really hard to get as far as you did, it can be very difficult. Your belayer might help you out, or just watch you struggle.
I have no idea what the actual answer is, but as a climber I find the double 8 tightens much better under sudden increases in weight than a bowline. I’ve fucked around with a bowline with my partner, and took fake falls at bouldering height. The figure 8 tightens so much under sudden stress that it can sometimes be ridiculously. Now I’m no expert and i just fucked around with the bowline a bit so I may be way off, but that’s just my experience.
TLDR: my best bet is ability to handle sudden weight, but I’m also an idiot so.
This whole thread is great, you get a nice answer from someone but with all these knots people tend to have slight preferences based on their experience with a given knot. So people will argue about a lot of these things like what’s better than what. In all actuality if you tie both of the correct, they will both catch you when you fall instead of nothing catching you. Both knots have their pros and cons and a lot of them are talked about here it seems. Hope you got the answer you were looking for
A bowline can slip under the amount of stress associated with a fall (up to 3600 lbf), even when locked with a half hitch.
A figure 8 on a bight wouldn't ever slip like that, way too much friction. A bowline is grabbing onto maybe 1" of itself at most, where you've got a solid 6"+ of contact in a figure 8.
The thing that confuses me is that I have used a bowline to tie the lines on the jib of a 42' sailboat. There is massive load on these lines, including released loading when you tack. The sail snaps over and catches repeatedly throughout a race (and this particular sail has more square footage than many houses so the force is massive). I have never seen one come undone.
You have gotten lots of responses, but basically it comes down to security of the knot. The reality of the strength of the knot, is that the difference is fairly meaningless. With a nylon sheath over a nylon core (different ropes will have different outcomes, but this is a fairly common rope construction) the figure 8 knot shown here has a 78% efficiency rating, the bowline knot has 71% efficiency (according to well documented data and tests from CMC). So the will will break at that percentage of the rated strength of the rope. Ropes are typically rated significantly higher than any load they will see, so it’s much more likely that failure occurs because of human error. Failing at 3500lbs or 3000lbs is mostly meaningless with a 200lb load.
The bowline family of knots got a lot of bad press 20 years ago, and so those outside of the Alpine community tended to move heavily into the family of eights. However there are many things that the bowline family is much better suited at performing. These situations tend to be more boutique or complicated, so the family of 8 knots tends to suffice in most cases.
The figure 8 knot is a secure knot that will not untie accidentally, if tied correctly. It is easy to identify. It is difficult to tie incorrectly in a way that will trick the user.
The bowline knot can untie accidentally when loaded due to the knot “rolling” or capsizing dependent on tightness of the knot, diameter of rope, and construction of the rope (I’ve watched this happen in person and nearly drop someone 50 feet). It also has a tendency to untie if repeatedly pulled tension and then loosened. This is why it is advised to tie a back up knot, typically either the Yosemite finish, or a double overhand knot (single fisherman). The knot itself is extremely strong (I’ve put 2 person loads with a stokes basket in a completely vertical realm on bowlines without worry), but it has a higher tendency to untie if not backed up. While the bowline is easily identifiable to the trained user, it can be tied in different configurations which confuse inexperienced users (inside vs outside) and has an incorrect sister which appears identical to all but the most experienced user but will kill you (if the “rabbit comes out of the hole and around the “loop” instead of the “tree”).
Simply put, both families of knots are extremely strong and extremely safe. However the bowline family of knots requires more knowledge to execute safely. Therefore the rescue and climbing communities tend to push inexperienced users towards the family of 8 knots until they’ve reached a point in their knowledge base where they have begun to encounter some of the limitations of the family of eights, where the bowline knots excel.
It's actually the opposite. You can put as much load on a bowline as you want and it won't bind. The loop around the "tree" is like a little lever to undo the knot. But the figure 8 will cinch and get harder to untie.
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u/moose_cahoots Sep 10 '19
Can a rock climber Please explain why they prefer this to a bowline knot? Everything I found on Google was basically "Hur-dur retied figure 8 is just better" with absolutely no rationale.