Each

yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly 0.914 ...

on a square or gaff rigged sailing ship is equipped with a footrope for sailors to stand on while setting or stowing the sails. Formerly, the footrope was the rope sewn along the lower edge of a square sail, and the rope below the yards was called the horse or Flemish horse. These terms will be encountered when reading the classic 18th and 19th century sailing manuals, and may still be used today when referring to older ships. Although square sails are mostly worked from the deck, in order to be properly stowed (and released from this stowage) they must be folded by hand and tied to the yard with

gasket Some seals and gaskets A gasket is a mechanical seal which fills the space between two or more mating surfaces, generally to prevent leakage from or into the joined objects while under compression. It is a deformable material that is used to c ...

s. This requires sailors to go aloft, during which time they stand on the footropes. The ropes are made of either fibre or wire, and are almost always protected from wear by being wormed, parcelled and served, so that the visible outer coating is of tarred thin line. They are attached to the yard via the jackstays or "handrails" to which the sails are also fastened, tied on with many turns of thin line. The inner parts of the footrope are held up towards the yard by vertical lines called stirrups; one of these is visible in the picture on the right. Also visible is the

flemish horse The Flemish Horse, nl, Vlaams Paard, italic=no, french: Cheval Flamand, italic=no, is a Belgian breed of draught horse. It became extinct in the nineteenth century when it was merged with the Brabant to create the Belgian Draught. From abo ...

that the outermost sailor stands on; because this yard is quite small the flemish horse actually extends fairly close to the centre. Sailors get onto the footropes from the

ratlines Ratlines () are lengths of thin line tied between the shrouds of a sailing ship to form a ladder. Found on all square-rigged ships, whose crews must go aloft to stow the square sails, they also appear on larger fore-and-aft rigged vessels to ...

up the mast. Lower down, where everything is bigger, there may be a small length of footrope bridging the gap between ratlines and yard; this is especially necessary on the windward side when the yards are braced hard round, as the gap becomes quite large. Because the yard must be free to move, this footrope is rather loose and hence unstable. Higher up the gap is small enough to step across, though it may be a stretch when hard-braced. Since the footrope will react to the extra weight placed on it, the practice on some ships is to call "stepping on port" (or starboard) before getting on, to warn those already using it. Once on the yard, modern sailors are able to clip their harnesses onto a safety wire that runs along it (on most ships they will have been unsecured until this point) - in the past, crews enjoyed no such protection. The sailors will now edge out along the footrope until they are spread evenly along the yard. Leaning forwards over the yard helps with balancing on the footrope, but where the buntlines come down to the yard it is necessary to lean back or crouch down to get around them. The outermost member of the crew must step off the footrope (calling "stepping off starboard" (or port) if that is the practice) across a small gap onto the flemish horse in order to reach the end of the yard where the clew of the sail is to be hauled up or let go. Because the footrope provides a rather narrow area to stand on, it can cause sore feet after a while. Modern sailors joining a tall ship are advised to take footwear with a solid sole that will spread the load, rather than the flexible

deck shoe Boat shoes (also known as deck shoes) are typically canvas or leather with non-marking rubber soles designed for use on a boat. A siping pattern is cut into the soles to provide grip on a wet deck; the leather construction, along with the applic ...

s and

seaboot Seaboots, also known as sailing boots, are a type of waterproof boot designed for use on deck on board boats and ships in bad weather, to keep the legs dry, and to avoid slipping on the wet rolling deck. The most common fabrics are Gore-Tex and le ...

s used on

yacht A yacht is a sailing or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a , as opposed to a , such a pleasu ...

See also