RIGGING. This is the name given to the whole of the ropes and cordage of a ship. It is divided into two kinds—the standing and the running rigging. The standing rigging coin prises all the shrouds, stays, hack-stays, and other ropes which are employed to maintain the masts and bowsprit in their proper position, and which remain pretty nearly in a constant state, whether the ship is in full sail or all the sails are furled. The running rigging com prises the various ropes called braces, sheets, tacks, halyards, buntlines, ttc., which are at tached to different parts of the masts, yards, sails, and shrouds; and are employed prin cipally in and unfurling the sails for the purposes of navigation. The ropes are called cables, ropes, or lines, according to their diameter ; hut every rope in a ship has besides this its own distinctive name.
The occupation of a Bigger is intermediate between those of a rope-maker and a ship builder, and distinct from both; he takes the coils of rope as prepared by the former, and adapts them to the various requirements of a ship. A rigging-house (such as may be seen in most large ship yards) is a place provided with tackle for stretching the ropes, and with the necessary instruments for attaching the block, rings, &c. The cordage employed for
a largo East Indiaman weighs several tons, and some of the ropes are four inches in diameter : the bending and fixing of such ropes, therefore, require the aid of pcaverful implements. Much of the cordage undergoes a process called serving, which consists in binding a small rope very tightly round a larger one, to preserve it both from rotting and from any friction to which it may he exposed. The substance thus bound round the rope is not necessarily a made-rope, but is sometimes made of old canvas, mat, plat, hide, or spun-yarn, according to circumstances : all these substances, when thus employed, receive the name of service, and the larger rope is said to be served with them.
The rigging of the ship is applied in its proper places at the time when each rope is wanted to serve its destined purpose. Each mast, each yard, the bowsprit, and various other parts of the ship, requires its own parti cular ropes ; and the parts—the wood and the hemp—are built up into form simultaneously.
Other matters bearing on this subject are noticed under ROPE MAKING and SHIP BTJILDING.