Interesting. I used to go to a Dutch sailing camp in summer as a teenager. My sailing instructors would have disapproved of the bowline shown here - they were always insisting that we use what this site calls a "left-handed bowline" variation. The reasoning is that otherwise the end would be wedged between the created loop and mooring. That has a number of downsides:
- it can be dangerous when (say) undoing the knot in stormy weather because you end up having to wedge your fingers between loop and post to undo the knot.
- theoretically if the boat rocks a lot and the loop is too tight, the mooring post could end up pushing into the end bit of rope, eventually undoing the knot.
So it was just considered better to make the lefthanded version the one you pick by habit. Now I haven't sailed in (effectively) a quarter century since so the fact that I remember this says something about how serious they were about drilling this into our heads.
When I think about it know the difference in risk is probably not significant for individuals, but I imagine that if you are a sailing camp responsible for hundreds of teens each summer it reduces the chance of accidents for them.
- it can be dangerous when (say) undoing the knot in stormy weather because you end up having to wedge your fingers between loop and post to undo the knot.
- theoretically if the boat rocks a lot and the loop is too tight, the mooring post could end up pushing into the end bit of rope, eventually undoing the knot.
So it was just considered better to make the lefthanded version the one you pick by habit. Now I haven't sailed in (effectively) a quarter century since so the fact that I remember this says something about how serious they were about drilling this into our heads.
When I think about it know the difference in risk is probably not significant for individuals, but I imagine that if you are a sailing camp responsible for hundreds of teens each summer it reduces the chance of accidents for them.