Mark Brown wrote:
Automatic hookups are nice yes, but nothing is 100%
guaranteed. Hotelliers take a little longer and are
a little more fiddly but they aren't the factor on
which a glider should/shouldnt be bought.

There are most certainly a factor for me (and many others). I will no
longer buy a glider which has manual hookups (except for one of those
vintage jobs I've been lusting after, and won't be flying frequently).
I know I'm unlikely to get them right 100% of the time.

Over the past 15 years I've been acquainted with at least six or seven
careful and experienced pilots who have managed to take off with a
Hotellier fitting disconnected. Three dead, one unable to fly or walk,
one with permanent leg damage.

I know one person who had an in-flight failure of an automatic hookup,
and that was a flaperon fitting on an LS-3 (which can barely be
considered automatic). She managed to bail out.

The odds look pretty clear to me...

Marc