Cathead

A cathead is a large wooden beam located on either side of the bow of a sailing ship, and angled forward at roughly 45 degrees. The beam is used to support the ship's anchor when raising it (weighing anchor) or lowering it (letting go), and for carrying the anchor on its stock-end when suspended outside the ship's side. It is furnished with sheaves at the outer end, and the inner end (which is called the cat's-tail) fits down on the cat-beam. The cat stopper also fastens the anchor on. The purpose of the cathead is to provide both a heavy enough beam to support the massive weight of the anchor, and to hold the metal anchor away from the wooden side of the ship to prevent damage.

In common practice, the projecting end of the beam was carved to resemble the face of a lion or cat. Whether such carving was due to a play on the already existing name of the beam or whether the beam was so named because of the practice of such carving is unknown.

The origin of the term "cathead" is obscure, but dates at least to the 17th century used by mainwaring and boteler in their dictionaries.

Cathead (disambiguation)

A Cathead is a beam on a ship for raising the anchor. Cathead or Cat head also may refer to:

Tim Phillips (musician)

Tim Phillips is a Canadian composer and singer-songwriter, based in London, England.

He has written music for many screen productions, including HBO's Entourage, the ITV serial Talk To Me and (with Murray Gold) the Channel 4 series Shameless, produced by Company Pictures. Phillips also provided the vocals for Gold's "Song for Ten", an original song composed for the Doctor Who 2005 Christmas special, "The Christmas Invasion".

He is Co-Artistic Director of Filter Theatre, which he founded with actors Ferdy Roberts and Oliver Dimsdale in 2003. Their productions include Faster, Three Sisters, Water (all at the Lyric Hammersmith) and a production of Bertolt Brecht's play The Caucasian Chalk Circle at the National Theatre. Filter enjoyed massive critical success with their 2008 production of Twelfth Night, for the RSC.

Phillips was in the UK rock band CatHead until Nov 2006, and thereafter was a member of Quaye, Phillips, & Young (alongside Finley Quaye and Steven Young). He performed "Song for Ten" at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms in July 2008.