Deckhand

He went to sea as a deckhand at the age of fourteen.

Sometimes actors set props on the spikes, or sometimes a deckhand will do it, depending on the action of the play.

You deckhand for Old Sam in the summer, you guide climbers up the Big Bump in the spring, you can skin a Cat, mine for gold, butcher a moose, fix an engine.

I deckhanded on a fish boat for four years and knew no fisherman likes to be called out of the blue and have his numbers demanded!

Years later, I met a guy who had deckhanded on her after I did, and he was a little more equivocal.

Larry ran a tugboat company from there, and sometimes my brother and I deckhanded for him.