Thole or Tholepin
one of a pair of wooden pins set upright in the gunwale on either side of a rowing boat to serve as a fulcrum in rowing [Old English tholl]
Tholepin rhythm up the sound,
Leathern fingers grip eight foot oars,
Keen eyes watch along the shores
For bobbing bottles and wooden buoys
Carved with a name and a number that
Holds a tarred warp to a bedroom trap.
Drop and swish, then up the sound,
By noon to row the string around
Tholepin rhythm up the sound.
-Richard O. Bickford of Winter Harbor, Maine
Good Morning Gloucester 