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• n  a stay that supports the back of something

• In the next race, Valiant was troubled by the wash from the 125-boat spectator fleet, a faulty backstay and a spinnaker sheet that snapped with a sharp bang, causing the sail to .
• Mosbacher had to veer off sharply; in the process, Intrepid caught a blast of air from a Coast Guard rescue helicopter that wrapped her mainsail around the backstay, cost her .

Quotes

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• Steve Squyres in Space Ref (press release)
  Backstay was different than anything we saw before,said Squyres. "It's a loose rock, not bedrock, so maybe it was ejected from someplace farther away, or someplace deeper. The Mini-TES spectrum is nothing wildly exotic . . . the thing...