Tarring the Rig

Hey, you gotta tar the rig today.

You see all those ropes up there, brother? All the blocks and links and pins and shackles? Get a harness on, you’re going up to be among them.

Because you see the bigger lines leading down from up there, the ones that look like a ladder, starting near the top of the mast and going down to that platform 50 feet up, and then down from there to the deck, where they form a ladder seven feet wide? Those are the shrouds. They stabilize the masts laterally. But more important, they let hot-stuff sailors like yourself climb way the hell up into the sky and lord it over the distant world down below. Working a tall ship you can stay up there a good long time and no one knows you’re goofing off.

It’s a good thing the shrouds do. But they get thirsty-dry. They need a coat of this special little formula we got here, made of a bunch of ingredients including oils and turpentiney stuff and maybe some essence of heave-ho and whale tooth. It’s called pine tar, and it’s been used on ships since tall ships began.

What you do is, you take a squeeze bottle of this stuff—an old dish soap bottle will do—and tie it to your body with a length of twine. Then climb up to the top of the mast with this bottle and a rag, and start wiping down the lines with it.

Take your time. It’s gonna take several days. The shrouds will take two days each, if you’re working alone. And after the shrouds, you’ll want to get the backstays, two on each of the main and foremasts. For these, you’ll need to get in little boson’s chair at the top of the mast, and be slowly lowered along the stay, from 70 feet up down to the deck, by a person you trust like few people you have ever trusted.

Then how about the peak pendants? For these you’ll need to walk out along the gaff, 10 feet over the deck, balancing with feet only. And then, of course, the lifts. Oh, the lifts’ll be easy. Just loosen them as much as you can, then climb up the shrouds again to reach the top parts, pulling the lifts over to you with one hand and tarring with the other; then get the lower parts by walking along one of the housetops and reaching out over the deck as far as you can. Better rig a tagline to hold the lifts away from the boom: If you get tar on the mainsail, the first mate is legally bound to cut off your thumbs.

The whole thing is just dip and wipe, dip and wipe. Work slowly and rub your rag into the service of the shrouds like you’re trying to polish them. Don’t quit till the service is soaked with black liquid. After a while your rag will be saturated with pine tar, also your hands, and you won’t need to refresh it so often. Just work that rag, brother. Get comfortable with your rag. When you’re finished, you’ll have a good looking ship with gleaming black rigging that looks supple and fresh. And you’ll smell good. Some soap makers even put the fragrance in their soap. It smells like a campfire in an evergreen forest.

But before you get started, go and find the lousiest, dirtiest, oldest clothing you can possibly find, the kind of clothing it would give you pleasure to destroy. Because by the time you’re finished, you’ll look like the creature from grime planet. It’s just the pine tar, really, a good and honest residue from a good day’s work. You’ll remember this when you go out for a beer afterwards and the other bar patrons move away from you. That's okay, you still got your crew, and they are just a crazy as you are.