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This is a good selection of climbing knots. I went down a rabbit hole recently surveying the "current internet wisdom" regarding the use of the double bowline

This is a good selection of climbing knots. I went down a rabbit hole recently surveying the "current internet wisdom" regarding the use of the double bowline with fisherman as a tie in knot for the climber ... To recap briefly -- figure 8 follow through is the standard tie in knot that everyone is taught. It's easy to tie, easy to verify visually, and secure -- but it's hard to untie after being weighted by a fall. That last fact matters a lot when sport climbing when taking big falls a lot is expected. Hence the several different versions of the bowline ... which is also secure if tied properly, easier to tie wrong, harder to verify visually, but extremely easy to untie after weighting ... Unfortunately there's a bit of a controversy in the climbing world regarding "what people are likely to do wrong" and whether those kinds of risks should guide people towards not using the double bowline as a tie in ... there are also multiple variations of the bowline -- some of which actually are less secure ... Personally I've been using the double bowline with a fisherman finishing knot for years now when sport climbing -- but it's a bitch to say it ... -- but I think a worthy addition to your list (or at least a clarification that the regular bowline by itself is not really used for anything in climbing)

roessland 6y ago
Apparently there is a wrong way of tying a figure 8, that leads to a version that is much harder to untie. Personally I've never had issues untying a figure 8, so it might just be that my default way of tying it happened to be the correct way. It's described in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAr-uHd8h8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAr-uHd8h8o Skip to 13:20 for the interesting part.
- breatheoften 6y ago
  That's a very interesting and well-done experiment! I definitely learned something -- and I buy the argument that there is a way to tie a figure 8 that makes it less likely or significantly less likely to be difficult to untie ... But I think that as rope wears and as humidity goes up -- you'll still easily find situations where the knot was correctly tied but still a lot of effort to untie after load ... And 12-18 seconds to untie is still a lot more time required than untie'ing the double bowline ... And he's showing figure 8 on a bite so he doesn't have to take the extra seconds to undo the figure 8 after ... that's not a huge deal but the double bowline is still imo easier to tie, faster to tie, and faster/more ergonomic to untie -- and also of course, harder to verify that it was tied safely by visual inspection ...

roessland 6y ago

Apparently there is a wrong way of tying a figure 8, that leads to a version that is much harder to untie. Personally I've never had issues untying a figure 8, so it might just be that my default way of tying it happened to be the correct way. It's described in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAr-uHd8h8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAr-uHd8h8o Skip to 13:20 for the interesting part.

breatheoften 6y ago
That's a very interesting and well-done experiment! I definitely learned something -- and I buy the argument that there is a way to tie a figure 8 that makes it less likely or significantly less likely to be difficult to untie ... But I think that as rope wears and as humidity goes up -- you'll still easily find situations where the knot was correctly tied but still a lot of effort to untie after load ... And 12-18 seconds to untie is still a lot more time required than untie'ing the double bowline ... And he's showing figure 8 on a bite so he doesn't have to take the extra seconds to undo the figure 8 after ... that's not a huge deal but the double bowline is still imo easier to tie, faster to tie, and faster/more ergonomic to untie -- and also of course, harder to verify that it was tied safely by visual inspection ...