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Square rig is a generic type of sail and rigging arrangement in which the primary driving sails are carried on horizontal spars which are perpendicular, or square, to the keel of the vessel and to the masts. These spars are called yards and their tips, outside the lifts, are called the yardarms. [1] A ship mainly rigged so is called a square ...
A belaying pin is a solid metal or wooden device used on traditionally rigged sailing vessels to secure lines of running rigging. Largely replaced on most modern vessels by cleats, they are still used, particularly on square rigged ships. [1] A belaying pin is composed of a round handle and cylindrical shaft.
Rigging comprises the system of ropes, cables and chains, which support and control a sailing ship or sail boat's masts and sails. Standing rigging is the fixed rigging that supports masts including shrouds and stays. Running rigging is rigging which adjusts the position of the vessel's sails and spars including halyards, braces, sheets and ...
When further rotation is obstructed by other bits of rigging (typically the shrouds), the yard is said to be braced "hard round" or "sharp up", as in "sharp up to port". This angle (normally about 60 degrees) limits how close to the wind a square rigged ship can sail.
Ratlines (/ ˈ r æ t l ɪ n z /) are lengths of thin line tied between the shrouds of a sailing ship to form a ladder. [1] Found on all square-rigged ships, whose crews must go aloft to stow the square sails, they also appear on larger fore-and-aft rigged vessels to aid in repairs aloft or conduct a lookout from above.
The square-rigged brig's advantage over the fore-and-aft rigged brigantine was "that the sails, being smaller and more numerous, are more easily managed, and require fewer men or 'hands' to work them." [4] The variant was so popular that the term brig came to exclusively signify a ship with this type of rigging. [8]
The key distinction between a ship and a barque (in modern usage) is that a ship carries a square-rigged mizzen topsail (and therefore that its mizzen mast has a topsail yard and a cross-jack yard) whereas the mizzen mast of a barque has only fore-and-aft rigged sails. The cross-jack yard was the lowest yard on a ship's mizzen mast.
Crew on a square rigged ship climbing onto the main-top using the Jacob's ladder The second type of Jacob's ladder applies to a kind of ladder found on square rigged ships. To climb above the lower mast to the topmast and above, sailors must get around the top , a platform projecting from the mast.