A word for the wise. We've had our boat in the water for a month now and have sailed her at least a dozen times. This weekend we were out in a good wind and everything was great. We have an American Flag that flys off of our topping lift line. We were moving along pretty good and I noticed that the flag was wrapped around the mast. I knew I had a problem, my topping lift had broke! I heaved to and then brought in the jib. Got the motor running and then went to see what happened. Apparently the little ring clip that attaches the topping lift to the line block had slipped out and the pin then fell out and the connecter was lost. I did have spare parts on board to fix the problem. But the wind was heavy and gusting, with a fair chop on the water, my wife was having problems just keeping the mast still. I remember thinking that little ring clip wasn't much. I should have replaced it with something more reliable. Last week I was out single handed. I would gave been in big trouble. I really don't know what I would have done.