A wooden belaying pin, approximately 0.4 m in length. Belaying pins are either solid metal or wooden objects used on sailing ships to secure the running rigging. They are still seen today on traditional square rigged ships and replica vessels. More modern sailing vessels have tended to replace them with fixed cleats. Their design has little changed, comprising a rounded handle and cylindrical shaft of varying length and thickness, dependant on the workload placed on it. The shaft would fit into holes in pinrails, which lined the inside of the bulwarks around the base of the ship's mast, or a fife rail, which was a free-standing rail set on posts to hold the belaying pins to secure the ship's halyards. The ropes or lines would be wrapped around the pin in a figure of eight pattern to secure them. Similarly designed pins, known as thole pins, were inserted into the gunwales to act as a fulcrum for oars on small boats. A wooden belaying pin, approximately 0.4 m in length. Belaying pins are either solid metal or wooden objects used on sailing ships to secure the running rigging. They are still seen today on traditional square rigged ships and replica vessels. More modern sailing vessels have tended to replace them with fixed cleats. Their design has little changed, comprising a rounded handle and cylindrical shaft of varying length and thickness, dependant on the workload placed on it. The shaft would fit into holes in pinrails, which lined the inside of the bulwarks around the base of the ship's mast, or a fife rail, which was a free-standing rail set on posts to hold the belaying pins to secure the ship's halyards. The ropes or lines would be wrapped around the pin in a figure of eight pattern to secure them. Similarly designed pins, known as thole pins, were inserted into the gunwales to act as a fulcrum for oars on small boats. This item was found along with two pulley sheeves (MAS-D100049) and a marble tile (MAS-D100050). A RDF representation of MAS-D100032 2017-03-14T07:28:01+00:00 2017-09-26T13:11:50+01:00 MAS-D100032 MAS-D100032 GB en-GB The Trustees of the British Museum The Trustees of the British Museum 1 The period from for the object http://purl.org/NET/Claros/vocab#Thumbnail Attribute as courtesy of the British Museum A thumbnail image of MAS-D100032 With finder MAS Created by MAS A BB A BB Identified by A BB V L Identified by V L Wood Primary material of object Complete By Attribution 3.0 Attribute as courtesy of the British Museum A full resolution image of MAS-D100032 Classification of object