Bolt rope

A bolt rope (Variants: "bolt-rope" and "boltrope", French: ralingue, Spanish: relinga, Old Norse: *rár-línk, comprising rár genitive of rá "rope" and línk "edge of a sail "), is the rope that is sewn at the edges of the sail to reinforce them, or to fix the sail into a groove in the boom or in the mast.

Fore-and-aft sails often have bolt ropes on the leading edge (luff) where they attach to the mast and the bottom edge (foot) where they attach to the boom, which provide the terms, "luff bolt rope" and "foot bolt rope". They also occur on the edges of sails suspended from a spar, such as for gaff, square and lateen rigs.