The Seaman's Friend / Containing a treatise on practical seamanship, with plates, a dictionary of sea terms, customs and usages of the merchant service

by Richard Henry Dana

There are some blocks that have no sheaves; as follows: a bull's-eye, which is a wooden thimble without a sheave, having a hole through the centre and a groove round it; and a dead-eye, which is a solid block of wood made in a circular form, with a groove round it, and three holes bored through it, for the lanyards to reeve through.

A Sister-block is formed of one solid piece of wood, with two sheaves, one above the other, and between the sheaves a score for the middle seizing. These are oftener without sheaves than with.

Snatch-blocks are single blocks, with a notch cut in one cheek, just below the sheave, so as to receive the bight of a fall, without the trouble of reeving and unreeving the whole. They are generally iron-bound, and have a hook at one end.

A Tail-block is a single block, strapped with an eye-splice, and having a long end left, by which to make the block fast temporarily to the rigging. This tail is usually selvageed, or else the strands are opened and laid up into sennit, as for a gasket.

A Tackle is a purchase formed by reeving a rope through two or more blocks, for the purpose of hoisting.

A Whip is the smallest purchase, and is made by a rope rove through one single block.

A Gun-tackle Purchase is a rope rove through two single blocks and made fast to the strap of the upper block. The parts of all tackles between the fasts and a sheave, are called the standing parts; the parts between sheaves are called running parts; and the part upon which you take hold in hoisting is called the fall.

A Whip-upon-whip is where the block of one whip is made fast to the fall of another.

A Luff-tackle Purchase is a single and a double block; the end of the rope being fast to the upper part of the single block, and the fall coming from the double block. A luff-tackle upon the fall of another luff-tackle is called luff-upon-luff.

A Watch-tackle or Tail-tackle is a luff-tackle purchase, with a hook in the end of the single block, and a tail to the upper end of the double block. One of these purchases, with a short fall, is kept on deck, at hand, in merchant vessels, and is used to clap upon standing and running rigging, and to get a strain upon ropes.