Justin Tyers

The old mast had a dark area just below the spreaders.

I wondered why our Mast was bending. I’d tuned the rigging until you could play it like a harp – but still couldn’t get rid of the ‘kink’.

Then last winter – when everything that isn’t varnished turns black – I noticed a ‘shadow’ halfway up the mast. I knew what it was even before I pulled myself up to it in the bosun’s chair. (I don’t know