Mates: At a seminar last night a participant asked an interesting question - What does one do if a piece of equipment breaks or is on the verge of breaking? This question is probably the least thought of problem a beginner or intermediate sailor ever thinks of but it is right up there with the MOB drill. As with the MOB drill, your response to a rig failure should be automatic. There are 5 things that can break - the mast, forestay, backstay, shrouds and your steering can fail. The first thing you want to do is remove any pressure from the part that is about to break or has broken. IF THE MAST BREAKS - The most important thing to do is prevent it from puncturing the hull. You might have to cut the wires so a good set of bolt cutters is an important piece of safety equipment. If you can salvage the mast, that is fine but in my case I'm "deep sixing" it and in all the confusion I might not remember its exact location because the insurance company will only nickle and dime me anyway. IF A SHROUD BREAKS - Tack immediately. The strain will now be on the opposite side of the rigging. IF THE FORESTAY BREAKS - Immediately bear off to a broad reach or run. The pressure on the mast and sails is now forward and off the luff of the jib. Leave the jib up as it will temporarily support the mast while you rig a spare line. If your like me and don't have a spare halyard ( its on my list but I never get around to it) drop the main, disconnect the main halyard and fasten that to whatever is handy on the bow. IF THE BACKSTAY BREAKS - Sheet in the mainsheet as hard as possible. This causes the leech of the main to assume the support that was provides by the backstay. Head up wind to reduce pressure on the leech. Rig a halyard to some point on the stern. A topping lift would work nicely . Too bad I don't have one. I eliminated it when I installed my rigid vang. The potential of the backstay breaking is another reason why I need that second halyard!! STEERING FAILS - Steer with your sails. Under mainsail only, the boat want to head toward the wind. Under jib only, the boat wants to turn away from the wind. By balancing these two forces you can get the boat to travel in a straight line. You can practice steering with the sails very easily. Try this: 1) Lock the wheel at center. 2) Release the jib and trim in the mainsheet. Boat will head up. 3) Release the mainsheet and trim in the jib sheet. Boat will fall off. 4) Now, working both sheets together, trim the mainsheet and ease the jib sheet until you get the boat going in a straight line. Let's say you want to tack. What do you do? Simple, just trim in the mainsheet and release the jib sheet. Hold until the boat comes head to wind. Now trim in the jib on the other side to back the jib and the boat will sail away from the wind on the new tack. Balance your sheets again to get teh boat sailing on a straight line. Anyway, those were my answers, which I quickly had to pull off the top of my head, as I was caught short by the question.