REEF-LINE. Casual aids in bad weather to help the men at the earings. When the vessel was going free, and the sail could not be "spilled," the men were, if blowing hard, often aided by passing the studding-sail halyards loosely round the sail, clewed up spirally from yard-arm to bunt.
REEF-PENDANT. A rope going through a cringle in the after-leech of a boom main-sail, and through a check sheave-hole in the boom, with a tackle attached to its end to bowse the after-leech down to the boom by which the sail is held reefed. On the lower yards it is a pendant for a similar purpose as the reef-tackle.
REEF-POINTS. Small flat pieces of plaited cordage or soft rope, tapering from the middle towards each end, whose length is nearly double the circumference of the yard, and used for the purpose of tying up the sail in the act of reefing; they are made fast by their eyes on each side of the eyelet-holes.
REEF-TACKLES, are indeed pendants and tackles. The pendant is rove through the sister-block, then a sheave in the yard-arm, and secured to a strong cringle beneath the close reef, sometimes through a block, and the end secured to the yard-arm. Within the sister-block it becomes a gun-tackle purchase, with the fall leading on deck. The reef-tackles are hauled out, and the other aids complete, before the men are sent aloft.
REEF-TACKLE SPAN. Two cringles in the bolt-rope, about a couple of feet apart, when a block is used.
REELS. Well-known wheels moving round an axis, and serving to wind various lines upon, as the log-reel for the log-line, deep-sea reel (which contains the deep-sea line, amounting to 150 or 200 fathoms), spun-yarn reel, &c. "She went 10 knots off the reel"—i.e. by the log-line.
REEMING. A term used by caulkers for opening the seams of the plank with reeming-irons, that the oakum may be more readily admitted. This may be a corruption of rimer, for opening circular holes in metal.
REEMING-BEETLE. A caulker's largest mallet.
REEMING-IRON. The larger iron used by caulkers in opening the seams.
RE-ENTERING ANGLE. In fortification, is an angle whose vertex points inward, or towards the place.