A bolt rope (Variants: "bolt-rope" and "boltrope", French: ''ralingue'', Spanish: ''relinga'', Old Norse: *''rár-línk'', comprising ''rár'' genitive of ''rá'' "rope" and ''línk'' "edge of a sail "), is the

rope A rope is a group of yarns, plies, fibres, or strands that are twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have tensile strength and so can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similarl ...

that is sewn at the edges of the

sail A sail is a tensile structure—which is made from fabric or other membrane materials—that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails ma ...

to reinforce them, or to fix the sail into a groove in the

boom Boom may refer to: Objects * Boom (containment), a temporary floating barrier used to contain an oil spill * Boom (navigational barrier), an obstacle used to control or block marine navigation * Boom (sailing), a sailboat part * Boom (windsurfin ...

or in the

mast Mast, MAST or MASt may refer to: Engineering * Mast (sailing), a vertical spar on a sailing ship * Flagmast, a pole for flying a flag * Guyed mast, a structure supported by guy-wires * Mooring mast, a structure for docking an airship * Radio mas ...

. Fore-and-aft sails often have bolt ropes on the leading edge (luff) where they attach to the mast and the bottom edge (foot) where they attach to the boom, which provide the terms, "luff bolt rope" and "foot bolt rope". They also occur on the edges of sails suspended from a spar, such as for gaff,

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90- degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...

and

lateen A lateen (from French ''latine'', meaning "Latin") or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long yard mounted at an angle on the mast, and running in a fore-and-aft direction. The settee can be considered to be an associated type of the same ...

rigs.

Attachment and characteristics

Bolt ropes were described as early as 1847, when Robert Kipping addressed "bolt-rope" attachment for a variety of sails, using sewing techniques appropriate to each, in his book, ''The Elements of Sailmaking''. He addressed the tradeoff between stiffness and flexibility to provide reinforcement without distorting the intended shape of the sail. He emphasized the need for the bolt rope not to affect the degree of slack on the

leech Leeches are segmented parasitism, parasitic or Predation, predatory worms that comprise the Class (biology), subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the Oligochaeta, oligochaetes, which include the earthwor ...

(trailing edge) of a sail. He further emphasized that the rope must retain its original twist, as it is sewn in place, to avoid distorting the edge of the sail. He observed that, "Many a well-cut sail is spoiled by the roping."

Attachment and characteristics

See also

References

Further reading