Halyard
rope used to hoist a ladder, sail, flag or yard
In sailing, a halyard or halliard is a line (rope) that is used to hoist a ladder, sail, flag or yard. The term "halyard" derives from the Middle English halier ("rope to haul with"), with the last syllable referring to a yard, the spar located at the head of a square sail (and some other sail types). Halyards, like most other parts of the running rigging, were classically made of natural fibre like manila or hemp.
Sail types
A square rig sail with a halyard is mounted on a lifting yard that is free to slide on a short section of the mast. The halyard is used to raise (hail or hal) the yard when setting the sail.
A gaff rigged sail has two; a throat halyard to lift the end of the gaff nearer the mast, and a peak halyard to lift the outer end.
A more modern triangular (Bermuda or "Marconi") sail has only one halyard which is attached at its uppermost point (the head).
Fastenings
Halyards can be attached a number of ways to the head of a triangular sail. The most common methods are as follows:
A shackle through a headboard on the sail.
A bowline through a hole in the head.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Halyard” is rope used to hoist a ladder, sail, flag or yard. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Halyard, rope and used, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1394451. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Halyard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.