Whilst crewing on the F18 (pictured) Those chicken lines did save me/us whilst doing the Round the Isle of Wight race. I'll never ever forget the 20 mile beat on port tack from St Cathrines Head to the Needles in a force six and then the bear away at the Needles to run up the West Solent. At that time I would have been more than happy just to carry on beating to Bournmouth!! But we had to bear away. We aborted the first attempt due to the speed freaking us out but we managed it on the second attempt to go from beating to running without stuffing the bows in. The chicken line I was attached too definitely did it's job during this manoeuvre and saved me from going round the forestay. We didn't bother putting the kite up for the 18 or so mile run up the Solent. We managed to pithpole in front of the QE 2 (I went through the mainsail) and had to miss the last mark of the course avoiding being run over. A ninety mile (8 hour) race ruined within 500m of the finish line. GUTTED
P.S I'll only ever go a round the Needles again sailing on something like this: