What are benefits of bowline on a bight?

Just working to expand my knot toolkit and have been practicing bowline on a bight at home. The only application that I can see  would be the same instances where I'd use bunny ears in anchor building to save on material. Bunny ears just seems so much simpler to tie. Is there any benefit to or application of using a bowline on a bight that I'm missing?

It's easier to untie after it's been loaded a bunch, and also if you're wearing gloves or your hands are real tired. Someone suggested I use it instead of the bunny ears for fixing the rope for TR solo for this reason, although I agree bunny ears is much easier to tie so I still prefer that. I don't ice climb and I've never had an epic trying to untie my bunny ears after TR soloing.

When I was practicing the bowline on a bight, I realized that if you don't dress it right, it becomes a slipknot instead. 

Edit to respond to Cherokee (I'm blocked from posting again    ): You don't have to tie it "wrong" to get the slipknot version, just dress it and tighten the strands in the wrong order. I guess you could say that's tying it wrong, but you could easily follow all the right steps to the very end and still screw it up.

Sam Cieply wrote:

It's easier to untie after it's been loaded a bunch, and also if you're wearing gloves or your hands are real tired. Someone suggested I use it instead of the bunny ears for fixing the rope for TR solo for this reason, although I agree bunny ears is much easier to tie so I still prefer that. I don't ice climb and I've never had an epic trying to untie my bunny ears after TR soloing.

When I was practicing the bowline on a bight, I realized that it you don't dress it right, it becomes a slipknot instead. 

I definitely accidentally tied a slipknot while practicing as well once or twice. That's actually what sparked my curiosity to the benefits, aside from being easier to untie. Most of the time I do bunny ears is on static line for setting up topropes, which is easy to untie, or on TR solo as you mentioned.

Really good for tying the rope around a tree or rock, and then weighting that rope (and subsequently, untying it).

Really good as a rope tie-in knot if you know you are going to be taking a bunch of whips - far easier to untie as well.

Its not hard to tie, at all. If you tie it wrong its true, it won't be a bowline.

Cherokee Nunes wrote:

Really good for tying the rope around a tree or rock, and then weighting that rope (and subsequently, untying it).

Really good as a rope tie-in knot if you know you are going to be taking a bunch of whips - far easier to untie as well.

Its not hard to tie, at all. If you tie it wrong its true, it won't be a bowline.

For a single or double-bowline yes. But not a bowline on a bight. I'm curious about the latter.

Ah ok I see, sorry to veer off topic. 

Bill Kinter wrote:

For a single or double-bowline yes. But not a bowline on a bight. I'm curious about the latter.

I, like many Europeans use it as a tie-knot (tied as a re-thread).

Bill Kinter wrote:

Is there any benefit to or application of using a bowline on a bight that I'm missing?

it's commonly used in top rope anchor applications where you have natural pro (trees, boulders etc.) and a static line to make a load sharing anchor with a master point. the bowline on a bight allows you to fine tune where you want the master point by tying one leg of the anchor at any point on the rope.

It is also used to make the little loop to belay directly off of a bolted anchor. Look up “Banshee Belay”. As was previously mentioned, be very careful you have actually made the knot correctly and that it is NOT a slip knot. 

curt86iroc wrote:

it's commonly used in top rope anchor applications where you have natural pro (trees, boulders etc.) and a static line to make a load sharing anchor with a master point. the bowline on a bight allows you to fine tune where you want the master point by tying one leg of the anchor at any point on the rope.

There seems to be some confusion between “bowline on a bight” and “bowline with a bight” - they are similar, but two different knots.

Your photo shows a “bowline with a bight” - the tail coming out into the “loop”

A “bowline on a bight“ would have the tail going the other direction (i.e. toward the load strand)

Marty C wrote:

There seems to be some confusion between “bowline on a bight” and “bowline with a bight” - they are similar, but two different knots.

Your photo shows a “bowline with a bight” - the tail coming out into the “loop”

A “bowline on a bight“ would have the tail going the other direction (i.e. toward the load strand)

ahhh right you are. my bad!

I’ve used bowline on a bight as my anchor tie-in for multi-pitch sport climbs. In an old anchor building handbook by John Long, he refers to it as “The Atomic Clip”. This use was pretty specific, but I really liked it. It was fast and easy to untie. The timing of this post is uncanny. I’ve been re-learning this knot over the past few days (It IS easy to screw up), just to stay sharp.

I've followed Victor up multi-pitch sport climbs and what I like about the bowline on a bight is adjusting the ears to different lengths if bolts or gear aren't aligned, it's easier to adjust than the figure 8 bunny ears.

The benefit of a bowline (and its many variations) is that it's easy to untie when you want to; the problem with a bowline (plus variations) is that it's easy to untie when you don't want to. Like some of posters above, I sometimes tie in with a re-threaded bowline, which is a bowline on a bight tied using different steps (just like the re-threaded figure-eight is a figure-eight on a bight tied using different steps). There are many ways to finish the bowline to make it more secure, people who like to geek out on knots will spend pages arguing which one is better. I like the re-threaded bowline because it's intuitive to teach and to learn for most climbers, because we are already familiar with the re-threaded figure-eight. Simply replace the figure-eight with a bowline and it's pretty easy to remember how to tie the re-threaded bowline.

A big benefit that has not been mentioned yet is the high strength of the bowline on a bight in ring loading.

This can be advantageous both for a harness tie in knot as well as using the knot as an attachment at anchors (Euro/banshee style). As a tie in knot, it essentially gives you another attachment point that would be ok to belay from-- there are discussions of this elsewhere, and some good rgold posts. If you choose to do this (I don't), a bowline on a bight is a good choice. As an anchor knot, it is a great place to belay the follower, or leader (only safe if you're climbing in Europe though). Sometimes the extra link of the knot between the carabiners lets them position freely, rather than rubbing on rock if you clipped the belay device carabiner to the bolt carabiner. Second case means the knot doesn't get loaded, and is thus preferable to me when possible. 

As an alternative to bunny ears, please note that bowline-on-a-bight isn't redundant if one of the loops is cut.  The remaining loop reportedly slips at ~1 body weight.

The bowline in the pic around the tree is a triple bowline.   True bowline on a bight can’t be tied around a tree or fixed point as the “bight” is fed back over the loops and cinched up.  

As soon as Gommers sees this thread, he’ll set us all straight 

Mark Pilate wrote:

The bowline in the pic around the tree is a triple bowline.   True bowline on a bight can’t be tied around a tree or fixed point as the “bight” is fed back over the loops and cinched up.  

As soon as Gommers sees this thread, he’ll set us all straight 

The bowline on a bight is tied on a harness as a simple bowline with the tail traced back through the knot  to double it up and form the knot into a bowline on a bight.  The bowline on the tree is just a simple bowline tied in the middle of the line.  

Mark Pilate wrote:

The bowline in the pic around the tree is a triple bowline.   

its a bowline tied WITH a bight... i mistakenly thought this was the knot the OP was asking about..

Lived Perched - you are correct.  I Forget about the rethread tying option.  Thanks.   A simple bowline tied on a bight (middle of the rope) is a triple bowline. 

Curt- No real disagreement, just that your “bowline WITH a bight” is much more commonly known as the triple bowline.  Semantics I guess  

OP- not sure how “bunny ears”  is any simpler. And you get more loop for less rope with the bowline on a bight.