I made a plane, put it in position and deleted the horizontal edges. The vertical edges were converted to separate curves, so I could use a curve and array modifier. But I have no idea how to attach the deadeyes and chainplates to the rope, the start/end cap options in the curve modifier gave me rather weird results.
It shouldn’t be too hard with constraints,also there is a special option somewhere where you can assign empties to curve sections so you can rig a rope for example.
I don’t have access to blender atm but hopefully someone can help you with the .blend file.
I knew it would happen someday, that someone would want to know how to rig a ship in Blender and that they would be told instead how to rig a ship in Blender.
Sorry, just had to say that.
Is it that you are having trouble running the line around the deadeye or that you are having problems with the way the object is hanging?
Thanks for the suggestions, guys! Tried a lot the last few days, but I ‘think’ I have a working solution for the shrouds:
I made a simple plane with a couple of subdivisons (it´s attached to the hull and chainplates with a shrinkwrap modifier and two vertex groups). Then I used a latice modifier to give the plane the shape of
the shrouds. 5 curves were added (also controlled by the latice modifier) and attached to the plane with a shrinkwrap modifier. The curves can be moved wherever needed and they keep their length, like on rails.
