But permanent work, by far the most important, and demanding the greatest amount of seamanship, includes all the care of the standing rigging, the sending up or down of masts and yards, and the thousand and one repairs that are necessary in order that the mazy fabric of a sailing ship's top-hamper may do its work of propulsion in association with the wind. Of all the heavier work of this kind, _i.e._ shifting the yards and masts, that of handling the royal and sky-sail yards is the most frequently indulged in; for many skippers commanding old ships dare not put too much strain upon the lighter masts in heavy weather, and they therefore make a rule of sending down the loftiest yards when they bend their heavy-weather sails. Now, a royal yard _in situ_ is a spar of, say, thirty-five feet in length (varying, of course, with the size of the ship), seven or eight inches in diameter in the slings (the centre), and tapering at both ends, or yard-arms, to four inches, or even less. By means of three (sometimes only one) encircling iron sling-bands in its centre, it is attached to an iron, leather-lined collar, which goes round the royal mast, and is called the "parral." It is also suspended by a chain "tye," which leads through a sheave-hole at the masthead, and is connected on the after-side to a purchase for hoisting the yard, the whole tackle constituting the royal "haulyards," "halliards," or "halyards," the latter for choice. From each yard-arm to the masthead run pieces of rope, which are tight when the yard is lowered. They are called "lifts," and are for the purpose of keeping the yard horizontal, and of sustaining the extra weight put upon it by men who go upon it for any purpose. Looped abaft the yard are the "foot-ropes," upon which the men stand when furling or bending the sail, and attached to each yard-arm are the "braces" for the purpose of slinging the yard from one side to the other. All this gear is for the yard alone. Then there is the sail, with a rope running through a block under both quarters of the yard, and down to the corners of the sail abaft all, the "clew-lines," while from a block at the masthead another rope runs down through a block or bull's-eye seized on to the tye close down to the yard, and so, being forked before-all to the foot of the sail, where it is seized, one leg on either side to the foot. This is the "bunt-line." The clew-lines, bunt-lines, halyards, and braces are worked from the deck, and constitute the "running-gear" of the sail.