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Updated: April 30, 2025
A long piece of rope top-gallant-studding-sail halyards, or something of the kind is taken up to the mast-head from which the stay leads, and rove through a block for a girt-line, or, as the sailors usually call it, a gant-line; with the end of this a bowline is taken round the stay, into which the man gets with his bucket of tar and a bunch of oakum, and the other end being fast on deck, with some one to tend it, he is lowered down gradually, and tars the stay carefully as he goes.
Tarring the stays is more difficult, and is done by an operation which the sailors call ``riding down. A long piece of rope top-gallant-studding-sail halyards, or something of the kind is taken up to the mast-head from which the stay leads, and rove through a block for a girt-line, or, as the sailors usually call it, a gant-line; with the end of this, a bowline is taken round the stay, into which the man gets with his bucket of tar and bunch of oakum; and the other end being fast on deck, with some one to tend it, he is lowered down gradually, and tars the stay carefully as he goes.
"Get a single block and a strap and a gant-line out o' the bo's'n's locker, Tom." "Is it all right, capt'n?" asked Tom, lowering his hands with a deep sigh of relief. "I did what seemed right, you know." "Rig that whip," said Swarth, turning his back and ascending the poop.
"Clap on to that gant-line at the main fife-rail, and lift this bag of coffee out o' the lazarette," sang out the captain. They found the loose rope, tautened it, hooked the bight into an open sheave in the stanchion, and listlessly walked forward with it. When they had hoisted the unconscious Tom to the gaff, Swarth ordered: "Belay, coil up the fall, and go forrard."
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