A member of my model club asked me a question about why yards on square-rigged sailing ships were sometimes skewed at severe angles to their masts. He mentioned that he's seen this unusual aspect in various historic paintings of square-rigged sailing ships in harbors.   I told him all that I knew - which is that this was a practice to signify that a senior officer aboard the ship had died. I believe this practice (ritual) was only done while the ship was anchored in harbor, for obvious reasons