[Cayo Quemado]

The Allied Princess 36 would seem to have a transverse rigging load of about 12,000 lbs. I would hope to find 9/32" or even 5/16" wire lowers, but even 1/4" lowers will have a combined break of 15,000 lbs. Daniel says he was verbally assured that the tangs were "massively over-engineered". The e-mail that he posted as coming from John reads

"The first thing that we did was to pull test another set of brackets from the same lot as the brackets you sent. As you know, they tested to over 13,000 lbs break strength."

Does "set" mean a pair? If so they actually seem a bit light to me. Or I've simply misunderstood the issue.

Daniel also referred to taking pictures of the rig in the water before he "let it go". The only pictures I've seen are the broken plates themselves but I can't imagine much of anything would be visible of a mast trailing behind the boat, fouling the mizzen, pounding on the hull while wire cutters were employed in very difficult conditions where time is critical and leverage is difficult to find, plus the constant movement of wires and mast all whipping about in 2 meter seas. "Let it go" indeed.