A bobstay is a part of the
rigging of a sailing boat or ship. Its purpose is to counteract the upward tension on the
bowsprit from the
jibs and
forestay. A bobstay may run directly from the
stem to the bowsprit,[1] or it may run to a
dolphin striker, a
spar projecting downward, which is then held to the bowsprit or
jibboom by a martingale stay.
See also
Bill Bobstay is a character in the operetta H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) by Gilbert and Sullivan.
Bobstay was a 1977 detonation in the United States' Operation Cresset nuclear test series.
References
The dictionary definition of
bobstay at Wiktionary