"Christopher Horner" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 01:30:00 -0500, Mike1
wrote:


In old "pirate" movies, you'll sometimes see, during a fight, a man pull
out a special-shaped wooden pin or club and use it as a weapon.
Sometimes he has one or more on him, but often he yanks it from a
mounting bracket on the rail of the ship (where there appear to be many
of things, for, I presume, tying down lines to tack the sails).

Question: Do these pins have a specific name?


If the first pic on this ( http://www.tallshipbounty.org/belay.html ) page
is what you are talking about then, you're thinking of belaying pins, used
either for lashing/belaying running rigging, or motivating the crew.

The more usual motivation tool was a "starter", a short piece of heavy line
used as a club/whip.