In an East Coast marina recently with a head sail halyard involuntarily unclipped from the yankee and at the top of the mast. I was short-handed and asked the yard if they could loan me a mast ladder to retrieve it.

They did not have one.

I asked if they could send me up in my bosun’s chair.

They told me: ‘It’s a problem these days. We will only go up a mast in a tested bosun’s chair hauled up by a tested crane.’

You have been warned.