G'day Simon,

Interesting story.

On the weekend of the NSW state titles I was boatless in NSW. On the Sunday I took my 8 year old son to Lake Illawarra to see the Flying Ants (and go for a sail on one)

While there I got a crew job on a 16' skiff. I noticed the boat had spectra trapeze lines and asked how the spectra went when used as a trapeze wire. Both skipper and crew affirmed that it was great, they'd used it for years and hadn't broke one yet.

We went out for the race and on the second windward leg the helmsman's trapeze line broke, he fell into the water, boat tipped over and tiller extension broke. We righted the boat and sailed back in not finishing the race. Guess I jinxed them.

On the other hand I've seen stainless cable break too.

Just as an aside: Gee it takes a lot of sail and work on a mono to get it to go fast. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />