I have never seen rips behind the grommets. On all of our tramps, rips only seem to occur in the high traffic areas -- where skipper and/or crew are going back and forth during tacks and jibes. Starts out as a worn area and eventually rips.

I can't imagine that it would be due to being too tight. Most people we know use mechanical advantage of some sort to get their tramps as tight as possible.

Maybe Matt Miller will know something about this.