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Halyard

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 altered by association with the English unit of measure "yard".[1] Halyards, like most other parts of the running rigging, were classically made of natural fibre like manila or hemp.

This article is about nautical rigging. For the Scottish castle, see Hallyards Castle.

A 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.

square rig

A 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.

gaff rigged

A more modern triangular sail has only one halyard which is attached at its uppermost point (the head).

(Bermuda or "Marconi")

Jumping/sweating the halyard[edit]

"Jumping the halyard" is a technique used to raise a large sail quickly by employing a few crew members to work simultaneously on the halyard. The person jumping stands next to the mast and manually grabs the halyard as high as they can (sometimes this necessitates jumping) and pulling it down as fast and far as possible. While this crew member reaches for the next heave, a second crew member 'tails' or takes up the slack created by the jumper, on a winch. When the person jumping can no longer pull up the sail simply by hanging on the halyard, they must "sweat" the line.[4]


To "sweat" the halyard is to take as much slack out of it as possible.[5] This may be done with a winch, or manually. To manually sweat a halyard, the sweater grasps the line and, in a fluid motion, hauls it laterally towards themself, then down toward the deck, letting the tailer take up the new slack.[6]