It sounds a bit much to spend on an old boat but this happened to me in Feb this year at a fun regatta in a nice bay not far from home.
We on our older Nacra 5.8 were last to leave on a triangle course inside a bay in a stern chase involving cats and trailer sailors. When we left there was only one other cat left to round the first mark on the other side of the bay and it was around 18 knots. When we got to the first mark the wind suddenly changed and hit a sustained 32 knots according to my daughter watching the indicator inside the clubrooms at the time. This turned the first mark into a lea shore with steep 10ft breaking waves that were washing our legs off the back of the boat as we reached along the waves jumping them to get away from the breaking waves. We were still in control when the sidestay broke. This was okay we freed all the rigging, the waves were too big to do much with them as they kept getting washed across the boat so we had to keep jumping the mast, we then tied the mast and sails to the back of the boat. We drifted towards shore until the rescue boat found us, when they took us into tow I wound the rope around the dolphin striker about 4 times with a double wrap around my hands to hold it. The rescue boat went over the first wave and pulled us half through it due to the wave catching the sails which before I could release pulled my hands into the knot fortunately the rope broke so all I got was sore hands and a bent dolphin striker. The rescue boat then said we were too close to the rocks so we had to let the mast and sails go or take our chances getting past the reef, as we let the rigging go a wave pushed the end of the mast through the side of the cat, we attached another rescue line around the dolphin striker to the traveler and we were getting towed. Then a report came through that there was a cat found minus the crew and the race was abandoned so we were asked permission for them to jettison us and search which we readily agreed. When the rescue boat was out of sight we noticed that due to no sails dragging in the water we were heading in the along shore drift towards the reef at the mouth of the bay with the bigger waves. Another boat coming to join the search found the missing sailor 1km outside the search area. When the rescue boat came back to us we weren’t far from the reef but they got us in tow and it took 90 minutes to get us back on a 15ft towline, each time the cabin cruiser went up a wave it lost forward momentum and we surfed down to come up next to it with waves breaking over us the whole time, this action of the tow rope demolished our bow foil. By the time we got back I had hypothermia and the rescue boat crew were badly seasick. Our Nacra 5.8 had no mast, sails, stays, one hull had been holed, the bow foil was ruined, the dolphin striker was wrecked, the traveler track was twisted up and ruined, the top of the decks were partially ground away by the mast sliding over it. Once in the clubrooms they couldn’t believe how happy I was even though my boat was a wreck but I was relieved to get home in one piece after a potentially life threatening experience. When I posted on an Australian cat sight questions about replacing the sails, mast etc a guy got stuck into me because catamaran insurance premiums will go up due to my claim.
All this happened because I didn’t replace older sidestays even though there was no rust stain when I purchased the boat, I always will now.