footrope
Sign in to savethumb|Sailor standing on a footrope, outer foot on the Flemish horse. thumb|The footrope (lightly outlined in red) on the topgallant yard, far above the water. See also the picture at Flemish horse (rigging)
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thumb|Sailor standing on a footrope, outer foot on the Flemish horse. thumb|The footrope (lightly outlined in red) on the topgallant yard, far above the water. See also the picture at Flemish horse (rigging)
A footrope is a rope suspended underneath a yard or bowsprit for sailors to stand on while working on the sails. It is a feature of square rigged sailing vessels from the middle of the 17th century onwards. Before its invention, sailors would lie or sit on the yards to stow or loose sails.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “footrope” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.