It gets mounted upside down from what you see in the picture. Its probably a case of it actually getting mounted too low, so when you're hoisting you're pulling up against the base of the cleat. They don't last long with out that metal piece in there. I did Tradewinds, (3 days), and F16 Nationals last year, and I think it was completely un-usable by day two of nationals. It failed at a horrible time. We were holding Robbie off for two legs, last douse before the last upwind leg it stuck, and Dan (my crew) had the attitude of round up, I'll take care of the front. It was the only time we had an issue doing things that way.


Like I said, a mix for whatever works best. My boat has Harken, Spinlock, Ronstan, and Viadana. There's probably a few left over Holt parts on my boat as well since it was one of the early boats when we switched to Harken. I'm sure there was some stuff that they were burning up, that was laying around.