Well, that’s not exactly true. There
were many ropes on the old sailing ships, such as footropes, boltropes, tiller
ropes, and others. What’s more, the font of nautical knowledge that I most
admire, The Encyclopedia of Nautical
Knowledge (Cornell Maritime Press) says this about rope:
“In marine use, rope is the general
term for cordage composed of strands and, as a rule, larger than one inch in
circumference.” That’s a little over one-third inch in diameter. “Smaller
cordage, including boat-lacing, houseline, roundline, samsonline, wire lanyard,
and aerial wire, though rope in the
manufacturing sense, usually is covered by the term small stuff.
The encyclopedia adds that “special
rope, such as the left-hand-laid lead-line stuff, is always called line.”
So don’t feel inadequate if some
know-all calls you out for referring to a line as a rope. Refer him to the
encyclopedia instead.
Incidentally, the book also says
that “in rope-making, the general principle of spinning the yarns comprising
each strand in a direction contrary to their lay in the twisted strand, and the
latter laid to form the rope with the same twist as in the yarns, has been
adhered to for centuries. While it is apparent that the twisted strands allow
for an uneven distribution of stress in a rope, in that the heart yarns bear
the brunt of a pull before the other yards, this disadvantage is more than
balanced by the generally desirable quality of flexibility, particularly when
the rope is wet.”
Rope-making has advanced
considerably since those words were written, of course, and we now have more
exotic materials and a greater choice of weaves. But a rope is still a rope,
for all that.
Today’s
Thought
And
were it not that they are loath to lay out money on a rope, they would be
hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to save charges.
— Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy
Tailpiece
The little wren of tender mind
To every other bird is kind.
It ne’er to mischief bends its will …
(So good. So dull. It makes me ill.)
(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
1 comment:
Just for further extrapolation.A few years ago I was researching a "cable" across the entrance to a harbour in the 1600s to keep enemy ships out. Thinking that seemed early for steel wire I discovered that a fibre rope became a "hawser" when it was more than 5 inches in circumference and a "cable" when over 10 inches in circumference. Since wire rope was invented in the nineteenth century and then electricity came on the scene, the original meaning of the word "cable" has been almost completely usurped.
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