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14-421: A deadeye is an item used in the standing and running rigging of traditional sailing ships . It is a smallish round thick wooden (usually lignum vitae ) disc with one or more holes through it, perpendicular to the plane of the disc. Single and triple-hole deadeyes are most commonly seen. The three-holed blocks were called deadeyes because the position of the three holes resemble the eye and nose sockets of

28-400: A line called a lanyard is run back and forth between them, through the holes, so that they function again much as a block and tackle would. This provides a mechanical advantage , pulling harder on whatever the deadeyes are attached to. Pairs of deadeyes are placed in the shrouds (the lines that hold up the mast ), where they are used to create greater tension in the shrouds. To set up

42-720: A spreader . Bending can induce unseen stress fractures. Most fore-and-aft rigged vessels have the following types of standing rigging: a forestay , a backstay , and upper and lower shrouds (side stays). Less common rigging configurations are diamond stays and jumpers. Both of these are used to keep a thin mast in column especially under the load of a large down wind sail or in strong wind. Rigging parts include swageless terminals , swage terminals , shackle toggle terminals and fail-safe wire rigging insulators. Whereas 20th-century square-rigged vessels were constructed of steel with steel standing rigging, prior vessels used wood masts with hemp-fiber standing rigging. As rigs became taller by

56-402: A platform, called a "top", or cross-wise beams, called "crosstrees", and anchored futtock shrouds from below that led to the lower mast. Each additional mast segment was supported fore and aft by a series of stays that led forward. These lines were countered in tension by backstays, which were secured along the sides of the vessel behind the shrouds. Spreader (sailboat) A spreader

70-530: A sheep's skull. Single deadeyes (or bull's eyes ) are used to guide and control a line and, particularly in older vessels, to change its direction. More modern systems would use a block for this purpose but in traditional rigs with many lines to deal with, designed when blocks were relatively expensive to make, a deadeye provided an acceptable compromise. When blocks came into common use for adjusting running rigging, deadeyes continued to be used for tensioning standing rigging. Triple deadeyes are used in pairs;

84-690: Is a spar on a sailing boat used to deflect the shrouds to allow them to better support the mast . The spreader or spreaders serve much the same purpose as the crosstrees and tops in a traditional sailing vessel. Spreaders are used to increase the angle between the rigging and the mast, providing better support, and to adjust the mast's shape and bend. This allows the mast and rigging to be lighter and thinner, reducing their total weight. Spreaders may be made of metal, often aluminium ; wood, often spruce ; or composite material such as carbon fiber. Spreader design and tuning can be quite complex. The spreaders may be fixed (rigid) or swinging (pivoted at

98-409: Is by far the most common as it combines extreme strength, relative ease of assembling and rigging with reliability. Unlike rigid stainless steel rod, it is comparatively easy to recognize wear and stress as individual strands (normally 19) break often near a swage fitting , and can be inspected while standing. Solid rod stainless steel is more aerodynamic so is often used in extreme racing yachts but it

112-729: Is cast off and the lanyard made off. In recent decades, as steel wire became the prevalent material for sailboat rigging, deadeyes and lanyards gave way to metal turnbuckles for tensioning the wires. More recently, however, with the advent of high-strength and low-stretch synthetic fibres, some sailboats are using synthetic rope for standing rigging, and deadeyes and lanyards are coming back into use as tensioning devices. Modern deadeyes, also known as chainplate distributors can be made of titanium or aluminum, manufactured by vendors such as Colligo Marine. Standing rigging Early sailing vessels used rope of hemp or other fibers, which gave way to wire ropes of various types. Galvanized steel

126-403: Is difficult to see stress as this requires professional inspection such as dye penetrate testing or x-raying . Rod rigging is strongest when terminated with a cold head rather than swage fittings. This process requires a different, expensive machine but yields a more durable end fitting. Rod-type stays fail suddenly (rather than strand by strand as a cable would), often where the rod bends around

140-401: Is unhooked from the purchase and made up on the shroud above the upper deadeye. The wedge can then be removed ready for the next shroud. As an alternative the tackle on the lanyard can be made fast to the shroud well above the upper deadeye so that it compresses the deadeyes. The last part of the lanyard can then be seized to an adjacent part between the deadeyes. When this is finished the tackle

154-432: The end of the 19th century, masts relied more heavily on successive spars, stepped one atop the other to form the whole, from bottom to top: the lower mast , top mast , and topgallant mast . This construction relied heavily on support by a complex array of stays and shrouds. Each stay in either the fore-and-aft or athwartships direction had a corresponding one in the opposite direction providing counter-tension. Fore-and-aft

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168-402: The lanyards used with dead-eyes, a suitable grease such as tallow is first applied to the holes. After reeving the lanyard through the deadeyes, the end is hooked to a handy purchase in the rig above, such as the throat halyard. By hauling on the halyard the lanyard in the deadeyes is drawn up taut. A small wooden wedge is knocked into the last hole, to prevent the lanyard sliding back, and the end

182-477: The system of tensioning started with the stays that were anchored in front each mast. Shrouds were tensioned by pairs of deadeyes , circular blocks that had the large-diameter line run around them, whilst multiple holes allowed smaller line— lanyard —to pass multiple times between the two and thereby allow tensioning of the shroud. In addition to overlapping the mast below, the top mast and topgallant mast were supported laterally by shrouds that connected to either

196-458: Was common for the first half of the 20th century, continuing as an inexpensive option to its 1960s successor material—stainless steel cables and rods. In the late 20th Century, racing yachts adopted composite fiber lines for standing rigging, with the goal of reducing weight and windage aloft. On modern yachts, standing rigging is often stainless steel wire , Nitronic-50 stainless steel rod or synthetic fiber . Semi-rigid stainless steel wire

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