SAILING CRAFT 107 



weather. When the area of a sail has to be 

 reduced, it is reefed by gathering up the head, 

 if a square sail, or the foot, if triangular, and 

 tying the gathered-up part securely by reef 

 points, that is, by crossing and knotting the 

 short lines on either side of this part. The 

 square sails on the mainmast are called, when 

 eight are carried, the mainsail, lower and upper 

 maintopsails, lower and upper maintopgallants, 

 main-royal, main-skysail, and the moonsail. 

 The standing rigging is the whole assemblage 

 of ropes by which the masts are supported. 



These few words are very far from being a 

 technically full, or even quite precise, de- 

 scription. But, taken with what was pre- 

 viously said about the hull, they will give a 

 better general idea than if the reader was asked 

 to make a realizable whole out of a mazy 

 bewilderment embracing every single one of 

 all the multitudinous parts. 



' All hands make sail ! ' Up go some to 

 loose the sails aloft, while others stay on deck 

 to haul the ropes that hoist the sails to the 

 utmost limit of the canvas. The jibs and 

 spanker generally go up at once, because they 

 are useful as an aid to steering. The staysails 

 generally wait. The jibs and staysails are 

 triangular, the spanker a quadrangular fore- 



