It must have jammed inside near the masthead during construction and suddenly Ioosened with the vibration. Another method of stiffening up a metal mast was to fit internal angle bars for the full length, and doubling plates at deck level, but nevertheless when made in ill-equipped shipyards such masts frequently failed. The smithwork, such as capbands and trusses, also varied from being neat and well formed to crudely fabricated pieces hammer-welded together , which logbooks frequently reported as giving way.

In general appearance, the single tree wooden mast and the iron mast had a taper from the deck to the hounds, and built masts had very slight taper, if any at all.

Topmasts with a few exceptions were more commonly of wood, and topgallants which also incorporated royal masts were of wood, tapering down in the round to the truck. The transition from the topgallant to royal mast was made with a very slight shoulder which stepped down in diameter, over which a thick rope grommet was placed, this serving as a stopper for the rigging (stays, etc.) to prevent it sliding down the mast.

Another way was to fit a copper cylinder or funnel above the shoulder with a slight projecting flange on its lower rim. The spliced eyes of the backstays, the topgallant shrouds' seized eyes, and fore and aft stays were all fitted snugly on this funnel. Its.purpose was to retain all this rigging in place whenever the topgallant mast was lowered down, so that when the shoulder position passed through the cap band all the stays, etc. hung slack from the funnel, which would then be resting on the cap. On raising the mast again, the funnel would catch on the step and hoist to its original position with the rigging taut again.

The reason for lowering the topgallant masts was that tea clippers in dock with a minimum of ballast were very often temporarily unstable, and on a number of occasions actually heeled over onto dockside sheds, as did the Cutty Sark once in London. Therefore as much top weight as possible was lowered when a clipper ship was in dock with an empty hold.

The jib-boom was also usually withdrawn on entering dock, but this was to prevent it fouling other ships, or poking into someone's bedroom in adjacent terraced houses. The peaks of the masts on British ships were crowned with flat wooden trucks, like flattened buns, which contained two small sheaves for flag halliards. American trucks were distinguished by a spherical ball, usually gilded. The tallest mast would or should have had a lightning conductor also.

Wooden yards were made out of single trees, except some of the largest lower yards in American ships, which were made of two pieces spliced or fished together with coaks, as for the mast, and bound with iron hoops.

The large spars were first cut down with adzes to the square, from the natural tree shape. The required taper to the yardarm was then marked off, and the square shape reduced to an octagonal for about the middle quarter length. Outside this length the spar was then shaped to a tapering round, the taper having a slight curve. The smallest spars might be left round in the centre section if the natural tree happened to be the right size. The eight-sided middle portion of the larger yards could also have the corners taken off again for sixteen sides, except that the after side flat was left large ifit had to take a wooden yoke. No doubt, in some instances the yard was rounded off over the middle portion to avoid special smithwork on the iron bands, but it was more usual to leave eight or sixteen sides.

Iron yards for the lower topsail and possibly upper topsail yards were round, tapered, riveted tubes with open ends into which wooden plug yardarms were fitted.

The outer stuns ail boom iron in its most common arrangement had two long straps bolted through the yardarm with the hoop set upwards and forwards at about 45°. There were some exceptions to this whereby the stunsail booms were slung below the yard and slightly aft of its centre to clear the chain sheets which ran below the yard. The Cutty Sark, Spindrift, Lord of the Isles, Glenaros, Fiery Cross of 1860, and Great Republic were rigged in this manner. The outer boom iron could also be detachable with its bent arm having a square prong which fitted into a square hole in the end of the yard, or else have a square hoop on the end of the iron to fit over a square iron on the yardarm tip with a locking pin.

The jackstay bar to which the sail was attached was, on most of the clippers, an iron rod which went through a series of eyebolts either spiked into a wooden yard or riveted onto an iron one. There was a separate rod for each side, placed slightly forward of the central axis and held in place by forelock pins through the rods at each of their ends. Prior to this, earlier in the century, jackstays had been made either of wooden battens with a series of long apertures on the underside between the bolts or nails, or else a hem p or wire rope on each side leading through eyebolts and tightened in the centre by a connecting lanyard.

The fitting below the centre of the lower yards to lead the topsail chain sheets down to the deck was, during the 1860s, in the form of two iron sheaves each with a separate pin, with cheek plates and straps, called a bullock block Instead of this single fitting two separate iron blocks, each attached to its own iron yard band, could be fitted, being an older arrangement from the times when sheets were ofhemp instead of chain.

For the yards which were not fixed in one position by a truss or crane -see the mastheads drawing a chain tye was attached to the central band or to an iron span, depending on its size.

The single chain tye led up through a sheave in the mast and then down to the bulwarks with a rope purchase, this part being known as the halliard. The large American clippers with their heavy wooden topsail yards had a double chain tye from the yard, made fast to a trestle tree, led down to an iron gin block on the yard, back up again to another gin block on the other trestle tree and then down to the bulwark with a halliard purchase. This could be varied by doubling the arrangement, with two gin blocks on the yard and the lead going to the opposite hand, or else leaving a single gin block on the yard and a gin block under each trestle, whereby there was a purchase from each side of the ship, either of which could hoist or lower the yard independently.

Of the various parral arrangements on the drawing , that with the leathered metal tub was most common on the later tea clippers, and survived into the end of the sailing ship period. This arrangement did not normally apply to very small yards for which the yoke arrangement was used with a simple rope parral.

As a spare mast or spar, a large spar known as the hermaphrodite spar was lashed down with chains to eyebolts on the deck either close to the waterway or alongside the hatch coamings. This spar, square in section with the corners chamfered, was of a size that could be converted either to a topmast or a lower yard. In addition there was a spare topsail yard either on deck alongside the hermaphrodite spar or along the top of the forward deckhouse reaching towards the forecastle. This was the minimum required on a ship over 6oo tons, and instead of the hermaphrodite spar separate spars of lengths to suit the topmast and lower yards could be carried, together with as many other minor spars as the owner desired.

Most of these would be carried on top of a deckhouse on raised beams or skids, and small light spars across the after boat skids between the boats. The masts for the boats themselves would also be carried here, together with stunsail booms. The skid beams would have two pillar supports each, if carrying such weight.