forestay

The smallest boat in the fleet, Graham Jackson's 31ft Grasshopper, has also withdrawn, with a broken forestay.

Jim: Inner jib, forestay sail, fore fisherman, mainstay, missenstay, and mizzen.

Steel forestay cables, connected close to the canopy's outer lip, transfer the weight to steel masts, from where backstay cables in turn transfer the load to the ground outside.

Forestay - one of the wires which runs from the mast down to the front of the boat to hold the mast up.

A broken dagger board, rudder and forestay were testament to the battering she had taken at sea.

Formalities and lifejacket fitting over, six identical white 32-footers quacked out in a line to find out the difference between the forestay and the bilge.

There's a second forestay with furling reacher, and all sailing functions are carried out from the helm by one set of winches.

Day 93 Forestay between mast top and bow of boat fails.

Once the backstay was free, I released the inner forestay, and forestay.

There is also an inner forestay for staysails, ideal for long-distance cruising, and a hydraulically driven headsail furling system for easy sailing.

Unfortunately, we broke our forestay toward the end of the regatta when we were winning the race on the second beat and forced us to count our worst result.

That brings the TP52 fleet into focus and their frontrunners: Paul Clitheroe's overall winner from last year Balance, Sam Haynes' Celestial, Matt Allen's Ichi Ban, Peter Wrigley and Andrew Kearnan's Koa, which is a past winner of the Rolex Middle Sea Race but retired early in last year's Hobart race with steering damage, the West Australian TP52 M3, which is the former Calm and which also retired last year, with a broken forestay and Brenton Fischer's highly successful Ragamuffin (his grandfather and Race stalwart, Syd, has pulled the pin).

M3 shredded her forestay just after the start of the 2015 Sydney Hobart, was offered a spare, but her crew chose to retire.