What is "fife rail"

Pin \Pin\, n. [OE. pinne, AS. pinn a pin, peg; cf. D. pin, G. pinne, Icel. pinni, W. pin, Gael. & Ir. pinne; all fr. L. pinna a pinnacle, pin, feather, perhaps orig. a different word from pinna feather. Cf. Fin of a fish, Pen a feather.]

1. A piece of wood, metal, etc., generally cylindrical, used for fastening separate articles together, or as a support by which one article may be suspended from another; a peg; a bolt.

   With pins of adamant And chains they made all fast.
   --Milton.

2. Especially, a small, pointed and headed piece of brass or other wire (commonly tinned), largely used for fastening clothes, attaching papers, etc.

3. Hence, a thing of small value; a trifle.

   He . . . did not care a pin for her.
   --Spectator.

4. That which resembles a pin in its form or use; as:

   1. A peg in musical instruments, for increasing or relaxing the tension of the strings.

   2. A linchpin.

   3. A rolling-pin.

   4. A clothespin.

   5. (Mach.) A short shaft, sometimes forming a bolt, a part of which serves as a journal. See Illust. of Knuckle joint, under Knuckle.

   6. (Joinery) The tenon of a dovetail joint.

5. One of a row of pegs in the side of an ancient drinking cup to mark how much each man should drink.

6. The bull's eye, or center, of a target; hence, the center. [Obs.] ``The very pin of his heart cleft.''
   --Shak.

7. Mood; humor. [Obs.] ``In merry pin.''
   --Cowper.

8. (Med.) Caligo. See Caligo.
   --Shak.

9. An ornament, as a brooch or badge, fastened to the clothing by a pin; as, a Masonic pin.

10. The leg; as, to knock one off his pins. [Slang] Banking pin (Horol.), a pin against which a lever strikes, to limit its motion. Pin drill (Mech.), a drill with a central pin or projection to enter a hole, for enlarging the hole, or for sinking a recess for the head of a bolt, etc.; a counterbore. Pin grass. (Bot.) See Alfilaria. Pin hole, a small hole made by a pin; hence, any very small aperture or perforation. Pin lock, a lock having a cylindrical bolt; a lock in which pins, arranged by the key, are used instead of tumblers. Pin money, an allowance of money, as that made by a husband to his wife, for private and personal expenditure. Pin rail (Naut.), a rail, usually within the bulwarks, to hold belaying pins. Sometimes applied to the fife rail. Called also pin rack. Pin wheel.

    1. A contrate wheel in which the cogs are cylindrical pins.

    2. (Fireworks) A small coil which revolves on a common pin and makes a wheel of yellow or colored fire.

n. the railing surrounding the mast of a sailing vessel

A fife rail is a design element of a European-style sailing ship used to belay the ship's halyards at the base of a mast. When surrounding a mast, a fife rail is sometimes referred to specifically by the name of the mast with which it is associated: the main fife rail surrounds the main mast; the mizzen fife rail surrounds the mizzen mast, etc. It is one of a dozen or so types of "rails" often found on such ships. Fife rails are typically horizontal strips of either wood or iron and are joined and fitted to the tops of a series of stanchions. The term apparently derives from the location where the ship's fifer would sit and play his fife at heaving of the ship's anchor.
A fife rail surrounding a ship's mast will contain a series of belaying pins corresponding to the sails on that mast which they belay. A mast will either have a single horseshoe-shaped fife rail surround the base of the mast on the fore, starboard, and port sides, a single straight rail directly before or directly behind the mast, or a set of two fife rails, one on each side (fore and aft) of the mast. Each sail associated with a given fife rail will have several corresponding belaying pins set into that rail.

Although a fife rail is a kind of pin rail, the term "pin rail" is often used to specifically denote those rails containing belaying pins that are attached to the hull. Unlike these, fife rails are freestanding.