buntlines

The Sailor's Word-Book

Ropes attached to the foot-ropes of top-sails and courses, which, passing over and before the canvas, turn it up forward, and thus disarm the force of the wind; at one-third from each clue, eyelet-holes are worked in the canvas, and by grummets passed through, a toggle is secured on both bights: to this buntline-toggle the buntline attaches by an eye or loop. When the sails are loosed to dry, the bowlines, unbent from the bridles, are attached to these toggles, and haul out the sails by the foot-ropes like table-cloths. The buntline is rove through a block at the mast-head, passes through the buntline span attached to the tye-blocks on the yard to retain them in the bunt, or amidships, down before all, and looped to the toggles aforesaid. By aid of the clue-lines, reef-tackles, and buntlines, a top-sail is taken in or quieted if the sheets carry away, but more especially by the buntlines, as the wind has no hold then to belly the canvas.