A yard is a spar on a mast from which sails are set. It may be constructed of timber or steel or from more modern materials like aluminium or carbon fibre. Although some types of fore and aft rigs have yards, the term is usually used to describe the horizontal spars used on square rigged sails.^[1] In addition, for some decades after square sails were generally dispensed with, some yards were retained for deploying wireless (radio) aerials and signal flags.

Parts of the yard

A view of Stavros S Niarchos‘s main-topgallant yard shortly after maintenance, clearly showing its various parts. On relatively “modern” late-nineteenth-century rigs like this, the quarters make up almost all of it. Click the picture for more details. Bunt The short section of the yard between the slings that attach it to the mast. Quarters The port and starboard quarters form the bulk of the yard, extending from the slings to the fittings for the lifts and braces. Yardarms The outermost tips of the yard: outboard from the attachments for the lifts.

Note that these terms refer to stretches of the same spar, not to separate component parts.

The yards are mounted on the mast in such a fashion as to allow free movement under the control of lifts and braces. The sail on this yard is “in its gear” – it is hanging below the yard but still folded up rather than spread to the wind.

Gunwale of the Cutty Sark

The gunwale (pronounced gunnel) is the top edge of the hull of a ship or boat.

Originally the structure was the “gun wale” on a sailing warship, a horizontal reinforcing band added at and above the level of a gun deck to offset the stresses created by firing artillery.

Over time it remained as a valuable stiffener mounted inboard of the sheer strake on commercial and recreational craft. In modern boats, it is the top edge of the hull where there is usually some form of stiffening, often in the form of traditional wooden boat construction members called the “inwale” and “outwale”.

On a canoe, the gunwale is typically the widened edge at the top of its hull, reinforced with wood, plastic or aluminum, to carry the thwarts.

On a narrowboat or canal boat, the gunwale is synonymous with the side deck – a narrow ledge running the full length of the craft.

A fife rail is a design element of a European-style sailing ship used to belay the ship’s halyards at the base of a mast. When surrounding a mast, a fife rail is sometimes referred to specifically by the name of the mast with which it is associated: the main fife rail surrounds the main mast; the mizzen fife rail surrounds the mizzen mast, etc. It is one of a dozen or so types of “rails” often found on such ships. Fife rails are typically horizontal strips of either wood or iron and are joined and fitted to the tops of a series of stanchions. The term apparently derives from the location where the ship’s fifer would sit and play his fife at heaving of the ship’s anchor.^[2]

Locations of fife rails on a 3-masted sailing ship.

A fife rail surrounding a ship’s mast will contain a series of belaying pins corresponding to the sails on that mast which they belay. A mast will either have a single horseshoe-shaped fife rail surround the base of the mast on the fore, starboard, and port sides, a single straight rail directly before or directly behind the mast, or a set of two fife rails, one on each side (fore and aft) of the mast.

Each sail associated with a given fife rail will have several corresponding belaying pins set into that rail.

Although a fife rail is a kind of pin rail, the term “pin rail” is often used to specifically denote those rails containing belaying pins that are attached to the hull. Unlike these, fife rails are freestanding.

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.

A belaying pin is composed of a round handle and cylindrical shaft. The shaft is inserted into a hole in various strategically located wooden pinrails (lining the inside of the bulwarks, surrounding the base of masts, or free-standing, called fife rails) up to the base of the handle. A line is then led under and behind the base of the pin then round the top in a Figure-8 pattern till at least four turns are complete.

Excess line is coiled and stored neatly by taking a bight from the upper part of the final strand, looping it over and round beneath the coil, then twisting it once or more before slipping the twisted end over the top of the belaying pin to secure the coil in place.

Lines coiled and secured by belaying pins

Other uses

Belaying pins are or were used:

• As improvised weapons and means of discipline on both military and civilian ships.
• As toggles in belaying pin splices, an emergency method of rejoining ship’s rigging where a belaying pin, marlinspike, or other short stout bar is used as a toggle to hold two rope eyes together.
• As a means of adding heft to a heaving line when a monkey’s fist is not tied in its end.
• In theatre, to secure rigging in a hemp fly system.