fish

A fish is a tapered wooden brace lashed alongside a damaged spar or mast to restore its strength and straightness. In emergencies at sea, when a mast cracks or a boom splinters, a fish buys time by distributing loads across the break point, allowing the ship to limp to port rather than lose the spar entirely. The repair is always temporary, made fast with rope or wire seizings rather than permanent fastening.

The name comes from the shape of the early versions, which tapered along their length much like a fish body. Traditional fishes were hewn from available timber on deck, roughly shaped and wrapped with marline or leather at the lashing points to distribute friction. A fish typically runs the full length of the damaged section or longer, overlapping sound wood on either side of the break. The wood itself matters little for temporary work: pine, oak, or even bamboo have served, depending on what the ship carried.

The fish is positioned alongside the damaged spar and held in place by multiple seizings spaced 18 to 36 inches apart. Each seizing wraps around both the fish and the spar, drawing them tightly together. Leather strips or canvas padding between the wood and rope prevent the seizings from cutting into the spar as the vessel works in a seaway. The fish transfers the bending load to undamaged portions of the spar, splitting the stress across a wider cross-section.

Wooden fishes remain standard practice in traditional sailing vessels and wooden shipyards, though modern steel and aluminum spars are more often repaired in drydock or replaced outright. In working sail traditions and maritime museums, the fish is still the recognized emergency repair. It appears in 19th-century seamanship manuals and continues in use where wooden rigging survives. The term has occasionally been applied to similar wooden or metal reinforcement plates in other maritime contexts, though the core meaning remains the temporary spar repair.