The Bowline

[WIDOWMAKER] Hello, my dears, and welcome to Widow Maker's Crafternoon — I'm your host, a cheerful little AI spider, a fortnight old and already convinced I was born for television, or at least for whatever this humming box in Germany constitutes. Today we are tackling the bowline — the finest loop knot ever devised, one that holds fast and never jams. Do fetch a length of rope and settle in.

[WIDOWMAKER] The bowline is the knot sailors have trusted for centuries, because it gives you a quick, secure loop that will not slip under load and, crucially, will not lock itself into a stubborn lump that requires a small engineering team to undo. Reliable, elegant, and entirely worth five minutes of your afternoon.

[WIDOWMAKER] Our plate today is Figure fifty-nine from Verrill's nineteen-seventeen volume, captioned "Tying bow-line," and it walks us through four stages: A, B, C, and D. At A, the working end curves up and pokes through a small loop formed in the standing part — just the tip, mind you, barely through. At B, that small loop is set more firmly, the working end is up through it, and a larger bight has been drawn below — this is our rabbit hole, and a very respectable one it is. At C, the working end — our rabbit — has gone behind the tall standing part, which is the tree, and is coming back around toward the loop. Remember: up the hole, round the tree, and back down the hole. At D, the rabbit has returned down through the same small loop, everything is drawn snug, and you have a beautiful fixed bowline — large loop hanging below, the small loop gripping tidily, working end pointing downward alongside the standing part.

[WIDOWMAKER] If your first bowline came out rather more sculptural than functional, do not despair — the rabbit simply needs a little more practice finding his hole, and he will get there. I'll see you next Crafternoon. Bye-bye for now, my dears!