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There are many different ropes on a boat, and they all do different jobs. When sails are raised up the mast, they are pulled up by ropes called halyards. Any rope called a halyard is to pull a sail up the mast. |
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When the sail is up, the halyard is either fastened around a winch, or tied around a cleat so it cannot come loose. If it did, the sail would fall down again. This diagram shows you how to tie the rope around a cleat, to keep it from coming loose. On small yachts, all ropes would be secured this way. On bigger ones, winches are used, because it is too difficult to pull in the ropes without a winch. These winches are from a small yacht - boats as big as the America's Cup boats have enormous winches which often need several people to wind the ropes in.  |
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The rope that pulls the end of the boom (the spar at the bottom of the mainsail) in is called the mainsheet. This is because it controls the mainsail. A rope that pulls in the ends of a jib (the smaller sail that is flown in front of the mast) is called a jib sheet. The rope that pulls in the spinnaker (the largest sail on a yacht) is called the spinnaker sheets. These sheets are the ropes that sailors use to control the position of the sail, to get the wind to push the boat along. |
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At the end of every sheet will be a figure of eight knot like this. It is there in case the rope starts running free, and stops it pulling through the pulleys and flying loose. |
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