Horse or Footrope

Danish
Dutch
English: horse; footrope
French
German
Spanish
Swedish: pert

Etymology

History

Footropes or horses first appeared on the main-yard only if we should trust the first printed instances.

1642 Bond: main-yard
1665 Nooms: main-yard
1665 Hohenzollern model: topsail yards
1670 Deane: main-yard
1675 Keltridge: main fore main-topsail, fore-topsail, spritsail yards
1677 Dassié: main-yard, fore-yard
1685 Battine: main, fore, main-topsail, fore-topsail and spritsail yards
1692 "Royal Louis": all yards except crossjack

It is not entirely clear what R.C. Anderson is referring to when in his "The Rigging of Ships in the Days of teh Spritsail Topmast 1600-1720" refers to Dutch "models of 1665 and prints of 1678".

References:

Battine, Edward: ms The Method of Building ... Ships of Warr. Manuscript, 1689.
Bond, Henry: The Boatswain's Art. London, 1642.
Dassié: L'Architecture navale. Paris, 1677.
Deane, Anthony: Doctrine of Naval Architecture. Manuscript, 1670.
Keltridge, William: His Book. Manuscript, 1675.
Nooms, Reiner: Verscheyde .... Amsterdam, c1665. At least some of the plates have been dated to c1652-1654.

The model of a Dutch two-decked ship at the Hohenzollern Museum, Monbijou Castle, was destroyed during the Second World War. A half-size copy is in the reserve collection of the NMM.

The model of the French First Rate ship Royal Louis [9 MG 1] is in the Mus‚e de la Marine, Paris.

Updated 1998-06-29 by Lars Bruzelius

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