Organic fastenings can be divided into ligatures (i.e. anything used in binding, or tying) and wooden fastenings.

Ligatures of rope, cord or threads were made of organic substances like papyrus, reeds, coconut fibre, grass, coir, hemp, reeds, grasses, vines, rattan (a form of climbing palm), root, animal sinew and leather, ‘withies’ i.e. young shoots or thin branches of wood. This ‘cordage’ can appear in the form of ‘stitches’, lacings, ligatures, and lashings.

Wooden fastenings, which can appear in the form of dowels, pins, treenails (trunnels), pegs, tenons, ‘keys’, mortise-and-tenon joints, and coaks were constructed of an equally wide variety of timbers.

Treenails, can be found ‘short’ i.e. not passing completely through the timbers being joined, or ‘through’, and are generally ‘wedged’ and/or ‘pegged’ to help secure them in place.

Metallic fastenings generally comprise iron, copper and copper alloys like bronze, Muntz Metal and others similar. These can be divided into nails, bolts and miscellaneous forms, with the last category including keel staples, dovetails and other plates.

Some types e.g. the large square-sectioned nail (or spike) have been in use for thousands of years. Large circular sectioned nails that do not project though the timbers being joined are called short–or blind-bolts. These (and occasionally spikes) were often ‘ragged’ (with barbs) to provide greater holding power.

While often appearing on the boat or ship as ‘straight nails’ to finish with their ends ‘short’ or ‘blind’ within or beneath timbers; large nails—that pass ‘straight’ through frames and strakes—can be found with the projecting end bent once, to become ‘turned nails’ (single-clenched) or twice to become nails that are ‘hooked’ (double-clenched), back into the timbers. Sometimes nails are hooked over quadrilateral washers called roves. They also appear in the lapstrake or clinker form, though this tradition exhibited a once unique form of clenched fastening, the lapstrake rivet. This was a nail with its projecting end nipped off after it passed through the strakes, to be peened or deformed over a rove.

As boats, ships and timbers evolved becoming progressively larger, the forelocked bolt, appeared. This type with its cotter or wedge secured over a quadrilateral rove, or ring, was followed by another form of through bolt, the clinch bolt. Its end was closed over a rove and later over a clinch ring. Sometimes a ring is found at both the head and end. All bolts that pass completely through the timber being joined can also be class as 'Through Bolts'.

G.F. Muntz’s 60:40 alloy of copper and zinc, also called ‘yellow metal’, being more durable and easier to drive, soon replaced copper as the preferred sheathing and fastening medium. Sometimes (as with the copper form) the heads of Muntz or Yellow Metal bolts were ‘clinched’, ‘upset’ or ‘peened’ over circular clinch rings to become ‘clinch bolts’, or were clinched at both head and end, to become double-clenched rivets. Large circular section copper alloy nails—or short bolts for they are both—eventually came to called ‘dumps’ and while these too could appear ‘ragged’, they were often ‘plain’.