"Richard Casady" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 18:45:25 -0800 (PST), tim
wrote:

However, is it one of those items like rope, it's rope until it goes
on a boat then it is called line.

Yes. When I was a kid the summer camp had some X-boats. They had
lengths of line sown to the edges of the sails, instead of slides or
whatever. These were called " Boltropes ". There were tunnels for them
in the mast and boom.

Casady

All the small sailboats I owned had the bolt rope system on the main.
Even my 19 foot mini-cruiser had that system until I took my main to a
sailmaker and had him sew on slides every 16" along the luff.
The slides made the sail much easier to raise or drop, which seemed a good
idea if I planned to sail singlehanded.