Cowboy bowline Cowboy bowline The cowboy bowline (also left-hand bowline, Dutch marine bowline or winter bowline) is a variation of the bowline loop knot. The cowboy bowline has the working end go around the standing part on the side closer to the loop and results with the working end outside the loop. In contrast, a regular bowline has the working end finishing inside the loop. (The "rabbit" goes around the "tree" in the opposite direction from normal.) Some hearsay suggest the Dutch Navy uses (or used) this variant of the bowline because they consider it superior since the working end is not
Bowline Bowline The bowline ( or ) is an ancient and simple knot used to form a fixed 'eye' at the end of a rope. It has the virtues of being both easy to tie and untie; most notably, it is easy to untie after being subjected to a load. The bowline is sometimes referred to as "King of the knots" because of its importance. It is one of the four basic maritime knots (the other three are figure-eight knot, reef knot and clove hitch). The common (ABoK #1010) bowline shares some structural similarity with the sheet bend (ABoK #1431). Virtually