See my comment on Mike's thread.

Edit:
OK that was a bit too abrupt of me TeacherRO.

One of the things I see all the time is people underestimating how long lines have to be.
When you start adding up the cordage just to pitch a normal tent people are surprised at the amount of cord involved.

I suggest you think of it in individual lengths first.

Just as an example you should guess how long of a piece is needed to lace a pair of boots, and then measure it.
Now look at a tent and add up the amounts of line involved.

I just bought 20 meters (65 feet) of 400lbs test cord.
It cost 10 dollars and could fit into a coat pocket.
It is just about enough to pitch a small tent, but that would be a waste of strong cord...
If i was to double this cord it could maybe hold 800 lbs.
4 strands of it would give a breaking stress of 1,600lbs(3/4 ton)but a safety allowance of 4 to 1 drops that back to 400 lbs again.
Just enough for me to be suspended from.

EDIT NOTE: People are getting confused about this and think I am recommending Paracord as a rappel line. It is not possible to use Paracord as a rappel line, even if there was no strength problem.
You could no more rappel down Paracord than you could rappel down a steel wire.
Even though you can use it to hang yourself from a parachute just fine.
I was only using my weight as an example of a load.
So substitute anything you want as the weight, OK
And a special thanks to everybody who thinks I might really weigh 400 pounds

Now lets look at the length again. 65/4 =16.25
So after allowance for knots I might be able to use it to lower myself about 10 feet.
If I was to accept a 2 to 1 safety factor (no thanks, emergency only) I might get 25 feet out of it with a breaking stress of 800lbs. Any slight bounce could snap it.

It might be worth trying as a tow rope though.


So you see TeacherRO, cord is funny stuff.

When you really need it you need a lot of it,
and when you don't really need it you still need a bit.