The yard’s words

Lay

The twist of a rope: how tightly its strands wind. Hard lay is tight and stiff; soft lay is loose and grippy. Getting the lay right is the whole craft.

Jack

The frame of hooks at the end of the walk that spins the strands. Ours is hand-turned, built in 1919, and named, unprompted, the Iron Widow.

Forming top

The grooved guide the strands pass through on their way to becoming rope. The foreman works here on a live walk.

Proofing

Testing a finished rope at the crane to a fifth over its working figure, held for the count of two hundred. Nothing ships unproofed.

Walk-boy

The apprentice who carries the former down the walk while the strands pay out. Every foreman in the yard’s history started as one.

Strand

A bundle of yarns twisted one way, about to be twisted the other way into rope. The counter-twist is what makes rope hold.

Whipping

A tight binding of tarred marline at a rope end to stop the lay unmaking itself. The yard whips every rope it sells.