The Bowline

The Problem

The standard rabbit-and-tree bowline is reliable but slow — fine at the workbench, clumsy when one hand is holding tension or you're tying the same knot for the fortieth time. Sailors, riggers, and arborists tie bowlines constantly, and the fast crowd ties them in one motion.

The Technique

The flying bowline builds the knot in the air and pulls it tight in one throw. From the creator's demonstration:

1. Hold the line with your non-dominant hand pinched between thumb and fingers — this is the stationary hand. The bulk of the line runs out in front of you.
2. In your throwing hand, hold the tail end with about two feet of slack draping between your hands.
3. Swing the tail end out, around, and over the draped slack — this throws the working structure of the knot: two loops (the creator calls them elephant ears) with a crossing between them.
4. Pass the throwing hand's end to the stationary hand through the structure, grab the standing line, and pull steadily.
5. The tangle resolves into a finished bowline with a fixed loop.

It reads as chaos in text — this is a knot to learn from the video, one throw at a time, until your hands find the rhythm. Once they do, it ties faster than you can say the rabbit rhyme.

The Problem

The bowline earns its reputation as the king of knots: a fixed loop that won't slip under load and unties easily even after being cranked tight. But the standard tie leaves the tail pointing into the loop. Anything riding in that loop — a carabiner, a hook, another rope — sits against the tail, and in rescue work that's enough to matter. A tail inside the loop can get pinched, abraded, or mistaken for part of the loop itself.

The Technique

The outside bowline is the same knot with the final tuck reversed so the tail finishes lying along the outside of the loop.

1. Tie the bowline the way you learned it: form a small overhand loop in the standing part, bring the working end up through it ("out of the hole"), around behind the standing part ("around the tree").
2. On the way back down through the small loop, pass the tail so it exits on the outside of the big loop rather than the inside.
3. Dress the knot and snug it down. The finished loop is clean, with the tail lying flat against the standing side.

The tying motion is easier to copy from the video than from text — watch the creator's hands once and the outside finish makes sense.

The creator's own take: the outside finish matters in the rescue world, but for recreational use — tarps, tie-downs, hauling — either version holds the same.