redundancy that I'm sure helped in your case.

I expect there are other factors involved as well. When my chainplate snapped the only things holding the mast forward were a baby stay - attached lower than the lower spreaders and two forward lower shrouds attached at the lower spreaders. We have a detachable inner forestay that was not attached when this happened. It was hooked up after the problem to stabilize the mast. As I had said, we were beating into about 20 knots with reduced sail. The mast shuddered but stayed put. It is a heavy aluminum section and I am sure that helped but I feel that keel stepping also helped.

We were about 250 miles out from the Azores headed to Gibraltar. The jib was shredded, the roller furling was beat to hell. We returned to the Azores (down wind) and ordered new roller furling, chainplate material and other misc items. Arranged for Pete Linwick at Florida rigging to consolidate the items and air freight them to us. Pete gave us excellent support. Took about ten days to get the shipment and another three or four to get it all back together. We have quite a few miles on her since then and the mast has had no problems since then.

And yes, it did happen at night.