Abrasion: Chafe or wear on a rope or wire rope. Chafe is most readily found on the surface of rope, but ropes can also abrade internally.
Aircraft cable: Strands, cords, and wire ropes made of very strong wire. Intended originally for aircraft controls, it is now widely used as standing rigging in traditional vessels.
Area, metallic: The sum of the cross-sectional areas of metal. In a wire rope it is the amount of “meat” in the sum of the individual yarns in a wire, which varies with construction.
Back a strand, to:. In a splice, to tuck a strand with, rather than against, the lay.
Backsplice: An end-of-the-rope knot in which the strands are spliced back into their own standing part.
Becket: 1. A rope handle. 2. The eye or hook of a block or block strop where the purchase originates (as opposed to the bail, from which the block hangs). 3. A short rope with an eye at one end and a button at the other, used for securing spars, oars, etc.
Belay, to: To secure a rope with round and figure-eight turns around a belaying pin, cleat, bitts, etc. To make an extemporaneous attachment to any object, especially with the intent of being able to control high loads.
Belaying pin: A wood or metal pin inserted through a hole in a rail, to which running rigging is belayed.
Bend: A knot that ties together the ends of two ropes.
Bight: A slack section in a rope’s standing part; a U-shaped bend of a line used in the formation of a knot.
Bitts: Upright timbers, usually in pairs, for making fast mooring and towing lines.
Block: A device with grooved wheels for changing the lead of a line, or for increasing the power of a tackle.
Bollards: Posts, commonly of iron, suitable for mooring. Like bitts, they are usually found in pairs, but they are more often round, while bitts are usually square.
Breaking strength: The measured load required to break a rope in tension. See Nominal strength.
Button: A leather stop fitted to the loom of an oar to prevent it from slipping outboard; a firm, compact multi-strand knot in which the ends lead back to the standing part after the knot is formed.
By the run: To let go or cast off instantly instead of slacking gradually.
Cable: A term loosely applied to wire ropes, wire strands, fiber ropes, and electrical conductors.
Capsize: When applied to knots, this means to change the form under stress; to pervert.
Carry away, to: To break and go adrift. Applied to both sails and rigging. “The main topmast carried away in the storm.”
Chafe, to: To fray, fret, gall, or rub. See Abrasion.
Circumference: The perimeter of a cross-section through a rope or wire rope; the girth.
Cleat: A wooden or metal object with two horns, secured to deck, mast, dock, or rigging, to which ropes are belayed.
Clevis pin: A transverse pin in a shackle, tang, turnbuckle, or toggle, to which standing rigging attaches.
Coil: A bundle of rope or wire rope, usually circular, arranged for convenience of handling and storing. See Reel.
Come-along: A ratchet winch with wire pendant used to stretch cable for service, to set up lanyards, to effect emergency repairs, etc.
Construction: The design of a rope, including the number of strands, the number of wires or fibers per strand, and the arrangement of wires or fibers in each strand.
Cordage: Fiber rope of any material or size.
Corrosion: Chemical decomposition of a rope by exposure to moisture, acids, alkalines, electrical current, UV, or other destructive agents.
Cotter pin: A split pin used in rigging to prevent clevis pins from backing out of position.
Deadeye: A stout disk of hard wood, strapped with rope or iron, through which holes (usually three) are pierced for the reception of lanyards.
Design factor: See Safety factor.
Diameter: The thickness of a strand, a rope, or a wire rope.
Dog-leg: A linear deformation in the run of a wire rope or rod, especially one that is gradual enough that the material can be straightened with no loss of strength. See Kink.
Double, to: To continue the lead of a decorative knot around an additional circuit, as in a Turk’s Head or button knot.
Ease or ease off: To slacken.
Elastic limit: The limit of stress above which a permanent deformation takes place within the material. This limit is approximately 55 to 65 percent of the breaking strength of steel wire rope.
Entry: The sequence in which strands enter the standing part at the commencement of a splice in multi-strand rope or wire rope.
Eye: A spliced, seized, swaged, or knotted loop, with or without a thimble.
Fair, to: To smooth out or to even a knot, splice, or sinnet, in order to improve its appearance and ensure an even strain on all strands.
Fall: The hauling end of a tackle.
Fast: Secure. “The throat halyard is fast.”
Fatigue: The progressive fracturing in metal due to a loss of resiliency with age and use; work hardening. Alloyed steels are particularly susceptible to fatigue.
Fiber heart or core: A twisted rope or strand employed as a core in wire rope.
Fid: A tool, usually conical, used in a splice, to open the standing part strands to make room to tuck an end.
Filler wire: Small auxiliary wires in a wire rope strand for spacing and positioning other wires.
Fox: Yarns wound or twisted together to shorten their working length, especially for fancy work.
Frapping turns: A number of crossing turns in a lashing or seizing or in the leads of a tackle, which serve both to tighten and secure the piece.
Galvanized wire: Wire coated with zinc to retard corrosion.
Gang: A set of rigging for a mast or yard.
Grades, wire rope: Classification of wire rope by its breaking strength. In order of their increasing breaking strengths the unalloyed steels are: iron, traction, mild plow steel, plow steel, improved plow steel, and extra improved plow steel. Alloyed steels vary widely in breaking strength depending on their composition, but most of the alloys used in yacht rigging have approximately the strength of improved plow steel.
Grommet: An endless wire or fiber rope, usually made from one continuous strand.
Ground tackle: A general term for all hawsers, chains, cables, buoy ropes, and warps employed in anchoring, mooring, and sometimes in towing a vessel.
Halyard: Rope for hoisting a sail or yard.
Handsomely: Slowly, carefully, gently; as, “to lower away handsomely.”
Handy-billy: A small tackle kept handy for small jobs.
Haul, to: To pull by hand on a rope or tackle.
Hitch: A knot that secures a rope to another object, such as a piling, rail, ring, etc., or to its own standing part, or to the standing part of another rope.
Hockle: A capsizing of the strands in a rope or wire rope, resulting from excessive twisting or unbalanced manufacture.
Hoist, to: To lift.
Independent wire rope core (IWRC): A type of wire heart for a wire rope, the heart constructed so that it is itself a miniature wire rope. The IWRC is stronger and more resistant to crushing than fiber hearts and other wire hearts.
Irish pennants: Cordage ends that are frayed or raveled due to neglect.
Jute: A natural-fiber material of low breaking strength, sometimes used for cheap rope and sometimes as a heart for four-stranded fiber ropes and wire ropes.
Kink: A sharp bend in a rope, wire rope, or rod that permanently distorts and thus weakens it.
Knot: Any complication in a rope.
Lanyard: 1. A small rope for making fast the end of a piece of standing rigging. 2. Handles, frequently ornamentally decorated, for tools, bags, watches, or any other small item you don’t want to lose overboard.
Lash: To secure or contain an object or objects by binding them with rope.
Lay: 1. The direction of the strand twist or lead in a rope. 2. The firmness or angle of that twist.
Lead: The direction of a rope, or the direction of a strand in a knot.
Leads: The parts of a tackle between the two blocks, as opposed to the standing part and the fall.
Let go, to: To cast off.
Line: In general parlance, a length of rope put to a specific use.
Long-jawed rope: Old rope that has stretched and lost much of its twist.
Loop: A 360-degree turn made in rope, but not around anything. See Turn, Round Turn.
Make fast: 1. To secure a rope with a hitch or hitches. 2. To finish off a belay with a single hitch.
Manila: A rope material made from Abaca leaves. Manila is stronger than jute, and is still used for some theatrical and boat rigging.
Marl, to: To secure or contain with a series of Marling Hitches.
Marlingspike: A conical, metal tool employed in just about every procedure of traditional rigging, especially for tightening, loosening, separating, pounding, and toggling.
Marry, to: To intermesh the strands of two rope ends preparatory to splicing.
Meathook: A short stub of broken yard projecting from the surface of a wire rope. Meathooks are usually the result of metal fatigue.
Modulus of elasticity: A mathematical quantity giving the ratio, within the elastic limit, of a defined stress on a rope or wire rope to the corresponding elongation.
Nominal strength: The published or advertised design strength of a rope or wire rope. This is usually though not always less than the actual breaking strength of the rope.
Overhaul: 1. To separate the blocks of a tackle preparatory to another haul. 2. To eliminate kinks in a line by recoiling, stretching, or flaking.
Palm: A narrow leather strap with thumb hole and, affixed next to the thumb hole, a dimpled “iron.” The palm is worn around the palm of the hand as an aid to pushing needles through heavy cloth or leather, the blunt end of the needle being braced against the iron.
Parcel: To wrap with canvas or tape the length of a rope or wire rope, in order to produce a waterproof base for service.
Part, to: To break.
Pendant: A standing rope or wire rope to which a tackle is hooked, seized, or shackled.
Pennant: The reward for winning a baseball championship.
Preformed: A wire rope in which the strands are shaped to a permanent helix. The strands of preformed wire will not spring apart when cut.
Prestressing: Stressing a rope or wire rope before use in order to remove constructional stretch.
Purchase: A mechanical advantage gained with block and tackle or winch.
Ravel: To fray, untwist, or unbraid. “Unravel” is a redundant term.
Reel: The flanged spool on which rope or wire rope is wound for storage and shipment.
Reeve: To pass the end of a rope or wire rope through any hole or opening.
Reeve off: To reeve through blocks for running rigging.
Riding turns: In seizings, whippings, and lashings, a second tier of turns over the base of round turns.
Rigging: The art of using knots and lines either to move things or keep them from moving.
Rope: Any cordage one inch or more in circumference.
Round turn: A 360-degree turn made with a rope around an object. See Loop, Turn.
Running rigging: All rigging that is rove through blocks.
Safety factor: The ratio of breaking strength to maximum expected stress.
Seizing: A means of binding two or more ropes together with cordage or seizing wire.
Seizing strand or wire: A small strand, usually of seven wires, made of soft annealed iron or stainless steel.
Service: Marline, small stuff, or seizing wire wrapped around standing rigging for protection against wear and weather.
Serving board: A small serving mallet.
Serving mallet: A tool for applying marline service.
Set up, to: To tune rigging by tightening lanyards or turnbuckles.
Shears: Two spars lashed together at the top and guyed; used for raising masts and hoisting heavy weights.
Sheave: A grooved pulley that rotates on a pin or bearings and constitutes the moving part of a block. Nonrotating sheaves, as found in topmast heels, are called “dumb sheaves.”
Shock loading: The sudden impact that results when a load comes rapidly onto a slack rope. The measured strain of a shock load can far exceed the load that produced it.
Shroud: A standing-rig piece that stays a mast laterally. Classically, a shroud extends from the top of a given mast to the bottom of the same mast. For instance, topmast shrouds start at the top of the topmast, but do not come to deck. Instead they end at the tops. The lateral stays that extend from a topmast or topgallant, and run all the way to the chainplates, however, are called “backstays” rather than shrouds. This remains the case even if they do not angle aft, to avoid confusing them with topmast shrouds.
Sinnet: Braided cordage.
Slack away: To pay out or let out slack.
Sling: Any of numerous configurations of rope or wire rope attached to an object, by means of which that object is to be hoisted.
Slushing: Protecting standing rigging from deterioration by coating it with a waterproofing agent that usually contains pine tar, linseed oil, varnish, or other ingredients in various combinations. Slush applications should congeal to a hard finish that will not scuff off on sails, running rigging, or crew.
Small stuff: Rope that is less than one inch in circumference.
Smartly: Together, with precision and alacrity.
Snarl: An entanglement of cordage.
Soft Shackle: A button-and-becket loop, made from high-modulus single-braid rope, in which the becket fits snugly around the stem of the button, but is formed such that it can be slid open to allow the button to be inserted into or removed from the becket.
Span: A length of rope or wire rope, fast at both ends, to be hauled on at the center; a bridle; a form of sling.
Splice, to: To interweave two ends of ropes or wire ropes so as to make a continuous length. Also, to make a loop or eye in the end of a rope or wire rope by tucking the strand ends into the standing part. Also, to bury the ends into the interior of the rope, for the same purpose.
Stainless steel rope: Wire rope made of alloyed steel, having greater resistance to corrosion than galvanized or untreated steel wire rope.
Stand by, to: To be ready to haul, slacken, or belay.
Standing part: The inactive part, as opposed to the end, bight, or loop.
Standing rigging: All rigging and associated hardware that supports the mast, keeps it straight, or provides means to attach certain sails, and is permanently installed.
Stay: Any piece of standing rigging. More commonly, any piece of fore-and-aft standing rigging.
Strand: A component piece of a rope, itself composed of two or more yarns twisted together.
Strop: A grommet or short pendant seized around a block, mast, or boom, by means of which a purchase is applied, or to which a shroud is attached.
Surge, to: To slack away on a line under strain by allowing it to slide in controlled fashion over the surface of a pin, winch, windlass, etc.
Swage: A fitting into which a wire-rope end is inserted. The rope is secured there by the application of tremendous pressure to all sides of the fitting.
Sweat up, to: To pull on a taut rope at right angles to its length, feeding the slack so gained to the tailer. Sweating up is a dynamic application of frapping.
Tackle: A mechanism of blocks and rope for increasing power. The ancient pronunciation “tay’ckle” is still preferred among riggers and many sailors.
Tag line: A rope used to prevent the rotation or swinging of a load.
Tail: To take up slack in a load-bearing line and subsequently maintain the advantage with the aid of one or more round turns on a pin or winch. The slack is usually fed to the tailer by another crewmember.
Tail on: An order to grasp and haul.
Taper: To diminish the diameter of a rope or a splice in a rope by removing yarns at staggered intervals over a given length.
Tenon: A projection on the end of a structural member, shaped for insertion into a cavity called a mortise, to make a joint. At the butt of a wooden mast, the tenon fits into a mortise in the mast step. (In aluminum masts, the reverse is usually the case.)
Thimble: A grooved metal fitting to protect the eye of a rope or wire rope.
Thoroughfoot: A tangle in a tackle due to a block’s upsetting.
Thwapping: The auditory water torture of halyards slapping on masts. A sharp knife is an effective anti-thwapping device.
Toggle: An end fitting to standing or running rigging, providing a universal joint. Toggles are generally attached to a tang or clevis pin, and secured by a cotter ring or cotter pin.
Turn: One round of a rope on a pin, cleat, or rail; one round of a coil.
Turnbuckle: A device attached to a wire rope for applying tension. It consists of a barrel and right- and left-threaded bolts.
Two-blocked: Said of an exhausted purchase, the blocks of which are jammed against one another.
Weed, to: To clear rigging of stops, rope yarns, etc.
Whip, to: To bind the end of a rope to prevent fraying.
Wire rope: A plurality of wire strands helically laid about a longitudinal axis.
With the lay: Ahead and to the right or clockwise with right-laid rope; to the left or counterclockwise with left-laid rope. To go “with the lay” or “against the lay” is to travel both linearly and axially.
Worm, to: To fill the seams of a rope with spun yarns or marline.
Yarn: A number of fibers twisted together.
Thanks to Doubleday & Company for permission to take many of these definitions from The Ashley Book of Knots. Clifford Ashley’s precise and painstaking definitions can hardly be improved upon.