Bobstay

Schematic view of the bow of a ship, showing: A the martingale stay, B the dolphin striker and C the bobstay.
Bows of HMS Victory: three parallel bobstays, separate dolphin-striker with martingale stays.

A bobstay is a part of the rigging of a sailing boat or ship. Its purpose is to counteract the upward tension on the bowsprit from the jibs and forestay. A bobstay may run directly from the stem to the bowsprit,[1] or it may run to a dolphin striker, a spar projecting downward, which is then held to the bowsprit or jibboom by a martingale stay.

See also

  • Bill Bobstay is a character in the operetta H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) by Gilbert and Sullivan.
  • Bobstay was a 1977 detonation in the United States' Operation Cresset nuclear test series.

References

The dictionary definition of bobstay at Wiktionary

  1. Bowsprits, Classic Marine
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.