A snotter is a rope or tackle used in

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (land yacht) over a chosen cou ...

to tension the

sprit The spritsail is a four-sided, fore-and-aft sail that is supported at its highest points by the mast and a diagonally running spar known as the sprit. The foot of the sail can be stretched by a boom or held loose-footed just by its sheets. A spr ...

on a

spritsail The spritsail is a four-sided, fore-and-aft sail that is supported at its highest points by the mast and a diagonally running spar known as the sprit. The foot of the sail can be stretched by a boom or held loose-footed just by its sheets. A spr ...

, or a sprit boom on a sprit-boomed sail by pulling the lower end towards the mast. It is also used in a junk rig. There are a great many variations on the snotter arrangement, and some more fastidious authors have referred to it as a ''snouter'' or ''snorter''. The origin of the nautical term is obscure. Hauling on the snotter sets the tension in the spar and thus governs how the sail is set. On very small boats, typically with a single boomless spritsail, the snotter is a rope with eyes spliced into it, and is merely hooked into the fore end of the sprit and then jammed up the mast to force the upper end of the sprit into a pocket in the sail.

Spritsail

There are ''boomed spritsails'', ''loose-footed spritsails'' and ''boomless spritsails''.

Sprit Booms

The most common sprit-boom is found on a ''sprit-boomed leg-of-mutton sail''. Sprit booms have been combined with a leech spar called a ''club''; they have been used on foresails, like the ''jib''. Some sailors have used a sprit boom on the ''standing

lug sail The lug sail, or lugsail, is a fore-and-aft, four-cornered sail that is suspended from a spar, called a yard. When raised, the sail area overlaps the mast. For "standing lug" rigs, the sail may remain on the same side of the mast on both the port ...

''.

Spritsail

Sprit Booms

Further reading