Have you ever been driving over a bridge and seen yachts on the inside, with masts seemingly too tall to get below the bridge, and wondered: How did they get in there? More importantly, how do they get out to go racing!? This guy has the answer, and he calls them 'boat balls'.

Trailer sailors have the advantage of being able to half-lower their masts to fit beneath low bridges, or even lower them completely and then re-rig while on the water. But when you're talking an 80ft mast on an ocean going Ketch, that's not possible! What is possible though, is attaching two giant balls to the top of your mast, full of water, dangling on halyards.

Said to weigh around 1000kgs each, the containers are filled with water before being winched up by a halyard. The yacht then motors in a tight circle to swing them to leeward, before they're lowered to just above the waters surface. In doing so, it pulls the mast down in a consistent heel, just like you would on a cracking broad reach!

See the movie below to watch the incredible way this guy winches the weights in and out to change the heel of his yacht, all with the intention of fitting it beneath a bridge. Without them, his mast would have contacted the concrete nastiness above, making a mess the mast and his yacht!

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