smallest boats, and its superiority to hemp rigging is now unquestioned. To commence with the rigging of the cutter's mast (see Fig. 55), it is supported on either side by two wire shrouds. On larger vessels three or four shrouds a side are used, and the small lines known as ratlines are fastened across them to form the rungs of a rudder. At the upper end of each shroud an eye is spliced, which is passed over the head of the mast and rests on the hounds. To the lower end of each shroud a deadeye is attached by an eye-splice. (A deadeye is a wooden block with three holes in it.) On the chain-plates, 13, are attached other deadeyes, corresponding in number to those on the shrouds, and the rigging is set up by lanyards, ropes which are rove backwards and forwards between the two sets of deadeyes, in the fashion familiar to every one who has seen a sailing-vessel.
On very small yachts deadeyes are usually dispensed with, and a line, with one end of it spliced to the eye in the shroud, and passing several times through that eye and another eye on the chain-plates, is all that is required.
Iron screws are also sometimes employed instead of rope lanyards, but it is difficult to get over one's prejudice against these—if it be a prejudice—for one would imagine that thus to rigidly pin down a mast with iron, and so allow it no play, must put an unfair strain on the chain-plates and the sides of the vessel.
