The Heaving Mallet

The heaving mallet, or “heaver,” is a tool used by traditional riggers when a piece of cordage, usually of small diameter, needs to be pulled with a great deal of force. Examples include setting a strand’s tuck in a large splice, tightening the frapping turns of a fiber or wire seizing, or getting the lark’s-head hitch taut to finish tensioning the lanyard on a deadeye. All require a very short but powerful pull. A heaver relies on the binding effect of how the twine is “loaded” onto it, combined with leverage achieved by its handle.

Even the most calloused sailor’s hands can pull just so long on a bit of small stuff before blisters or cuts occur, and even then, only so much force can be achieved. A marlinespike can be used as a handle to grip when pulling small stuff, using a marlinespike hitch, but that is also dependent solely on the strength of the person pulling on it.

Enter the heaving mallet. First mentioned in print by David Steel in his 1794 book The Elements and Practice of Rigging and Seamanship, it was described as “A mallet with a small cylindrical head, used as a lever to strain tight the cross stitches and to beat them close, when sewing on the bolt-rope [of a sail].”

Riggers, it seems, quickly took this concept from sailmakers and began using such mallets as well, in various sizes. Heavers were often all wood, but some were made with metal (usually brass) heads or handles, especially when wire seizings came into use in the mid-1800s; they were used to tighten the frapping turns of wire seizings and the final hitches, as well as to hammer the seizings flat. Occasionally, I see beautiful sailor-made examples of mallets with ebony heads and whalebone handles—usually misidentified as “caulking mallets.” The giveaway is the pristine face of the mallet, and scores around the cylinder and the base of the handle, indicating how massive friction has left its mark.

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