Service

From WikiPOBia

Servicing or wrapping of a line, typically marline around an object to protect it. At its most basic level, the service is a sacrificial covering, but it may also be a more easily protected material. It is easier and cheaper, for example, to sufficiently impregnate service with tar to make it waterproof than to do the same for a three-inch hawser. Sometimes, too, the service may add its own strength. One of the most commonly served things is a splice, in which case the service helps to hold in the loose ends and prevent their becoming unlaid. The most complete protection of heavy line which did not need to maintain its flexibility, e.g., for standing rigging, was to worm, parcel, and serve it.