Editor’s note: This installment of the newsletter is a companion piece to the Seamanship and Navigation newsletter of November 2021 that detailed a repair at sea of the clipper ship Cutty Sark. This time, Eric Forsyth looks at a feat of seamanship from the era of the last sailing merchant ships — an impressive foremast repair made by the captain and crew of the steel ship British Isles. British Isles was a heavy ship, typical of the freight-carrying square riggers that ended the age of sail. She was built in Scotland and launched in 1884 with a registered tonnage of…