Editing Standing rigging (section)

==Square-rigged vessels==
[[Image:TripleDeadeyes.jpg|thumb|Triple deadeyes and lanyards used to tension shrouds.]]
Whereas 20th-century square-rigged vessels were constructed of steel with steel standing rigging, prior vessels used wood masts with hemp-fiber standing rigging. As rigs became taller by the end of the 19th century, masts relied more heavily on successive spars, stepped one atop the other to form the whole, from bottom to top: the ''lower mast'', ''top mast'', and ''topgallant mast''. This construction relied heavily on support by a complex array of stays and shrouds. Each stay in either the fore-and-aft or athwartships direction had a corresponding one in the opposite direction providing counter-tension. Fore-and-aft the system of tensioning started with the stays that were anchored in front each mast. Shrouds were tensioned by pairs of [[deadeye]]s, circular blocks that had the large-diameter line run around them, whilst multiple holes allowed smaller line—''lanyard''—to pass multiple times between the two and thereby allow tensioning of the shroud.<ref name = Wolfram>
{{cite book
 | last = zu Mondfeld
 | first = Wolfram 
 | title = Historic Ship Models
 | publisher = Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
 | date = 2005
 | pages = 352
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=5nrXLkfLBGcC&q=standing+rigging&pg=PA270
 | isbn = 9781402721861 }}</ref>

===Lateral support===
In addition to overlapping the mast below, the top mast and topgallant mast were supported laterally by [[Shroud (sailing)|shrouds]] that connected to either a platform, called a "top", or cross-wise beams, called "crosstrees", and anchored [[futtock shrouds]] from below that led to the lower mast.<ref name = Wolfram/>

===Fore-and-aft support===
Each additional mast segment was supported fore and aft by a series of stays that led forward. These lines were countered in tension by backstays, which were secured along the sides of the vessel behind the shrouds.<ref name = Wolfram/>