A fairlead is a device to guide a line, rope or cable around an object, out of the way or to stop it from moving laterally. Typically a fairlead will be a ring or hook. The fairlead may be a separate piece of hardware, or it could be a hole in the structure. There are two types of fairlead: roller and fixed. In a roller fairlead, there are four rollers in total. The first two are vertically mounted and the other two are horizontally mounted. A fixed fairlead is one piece of smooth, rounded metal with no moving parts. A fixed fairlead may be open or closed. Compared to a roller fairlead, a fixed fairlead is extremely simple.