Rope round the wrist
A ring of braided rope tattooed round the wrist. In the US Navy it marked a deck seaman.
Meaning
The Naval History and Heritage Command records braided rope or line as a traditional tattoo, usually placed round the left wrist, that indicates a deck division seaman. The Navy’s National Museum of the American Sailor gave the same reading in its exhibition “Marked by the Sea”: a rope tattoo round the wrist could indicate a deckhand. The Friends of HMS Trincomalee, in Hartlepool, give the same meaning.
Origin and history
A Navy photograph of C. A. Lushbaugh, who served in the 1920s with at least one tour on the battleship USS Arizona, shows a braided rope round his left wrist, which the Navy’s caption reads as the mark of a deck seaman.
Trade marks in ink
The rope is one of the tattoos that say what a sailor does. The Navy’s museum calls them vocational emblems: enlisted sailors often wear their rating in ink, and officers might get aviator’s wings or the submariner’s badge. The Navy’s historians note that qualification badges and rating insignia remain popular tattoos, such as the Navy diver’s insignia tattooed on a man photographed demonstrating Underwater Demolition Team equipment at Coronado in 1951. Boatswain’s mates wear their rating’s crossed anchors (see Anchor).
Read next
- Next in Traditional tattoo motifsDagger through a heartA heart run through by a dagger, often with the motto “Death Before Dishonor”. The Navy’s historians read it as the end of a love affair through unfaithfulness.
- The same shape in Adinkra symbolsAnanse Ntontan (spider’s web)Ananse Ntontan, “spider’s web”, is the adinkra symbol of wisdom and creativity, after Ananse, the spider of Akan stories.
See also
Anchor, Swallow, Full-rigged ship, Shellback turtle, Dragon, Nautical star.
Sources
- Sailors’ Tattoos: A Basic Primer, Heritage: customs and traditions, published 4 December 2024 (Internet Archive copy, 29 January 2026), Naval History and Heritage Command (U.S. Navy), Some Traditional Sailors’ Tattoos: Braided rope/line; photo UA 486.02; photo 80-G-443227
- Of Swallows, Shellbacks, & Sweethearts, by Lt. Col. Patrick Chaisson, MOAA magazine, October 2023: on “Marked by the Sea: Tattoos in the U.S. Navy” at the National Museum of the American Sailor, Great Lakes, Illinois, Military Officers Association of America, ‘Flash Art’
- Sailors’ Tattoos and their Meanings, Quarterdeck, 2010 issue 2 (Summer), pp. 10–11 (offprint QD6), Friends of HMS Trincomalee (National Museum of the Royal Navy, Hartlepool), p. 1
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles or lines.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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