DDW, I know that when I re-rigged, I had all kinds of faith in it. It was new, after all. A mistake I made was I opted for swaged fittings. Not that anything has happened, but trying to save the extra boat unit, was a stupid thing. When I am able to go cruising again, I will fix that. All this is by way of saying, that with new and very expensive equipment comes a sense of security. Still, they are a gutsy couple who handled an extremely difficult situation well. Another of Jon Eisberg's "genuine articles". One last thing: the stresses on an unstayed spar on a cat must be tremendous.

Mike Meier