Shadetree boat awning systems pole broke - 2013

For no good apparent reason our forward Shadetree boat awning systems pole broke. One of the fiberglass poles just snapped. This happened before while we were in Barra da la Navidad but we thought it was something we did.
August 2013 - s\v Elegant'sea is currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico (by Puerto Vallarta) 

 The good thing is we had ordered a new pole set and replaced the one that broke so we had some spares.

Debbie took the broken set apart and we replaced the broken pole with a spare and then Debbie threaded the bungee chord that keeps them connected back through them all. Debbie used some thread that we use to sew Sunbrella and a large needle. She dropped the needle through the tube and then tied the thread to the bungee. Took some time and patience but it was done. I was going to just cut the bungee off and be done with it. Of course this would make it hard to thread the poles back through the Shade Tree without them coming apart. Then they would punch a hole in the Shade Tree.

So from what I hear this is one of the gripes about the Shade Tree system. So far if this does not happen often then we are fine with it as the benefit well out weighs the broken pole here and there.

Also this time we eliminated the extra bungees we had pulling on the forward part of the shade tree.