Here's my snap hook story:

We chartered a Moorings 4000 cat out of Raiatea and had arrived at MaiKai yacht club in Bora Bora, where an employee come out in a dinghy to help us hook up to one of their moorings. The boat had a bridle with a large snap hook on it.

I didn't see it at the time (my mistake) but learned later that the guy couldn't fit the snap hook over the spliced eye in their very thick pendant rope, so he passed the bridle through the eye and clipped it to itself.

Casting off the next morning, I found the snap hook hooked on the strands of the thick mooring pendant with the gate opened.

I pieced together the story (my son had seen what the guy did but didn't think to mention it). The side-loaded carabiner had unclipped itself from the bridle and fortunately caught on the thick rope in the process.

It still makes me ill to think how close we came to going adrift in the middle of the night.

And, yes, lesson learned.