I played around with the O'day spin the boom reefing setup while sitting on the trailer the other day and I wasn't impressed. So, I am planning on adding some reef points to my existing mainsail. I will likely do this myself because I don't think the sail is worth paying the money to do it. I'd probably just buy a new sail with reef points already in it if I have to spend much money. That said, I can do it myself for much less money and am always willing to try. That said, I have a few questions.
1. Should I put is just one set of reef points, or two. The cost difference doing it myself is negligible, but if 2 aren't needed then I won't do them.
2. I have read that the first reef point should reduce the sail area by about 25% and the second reef should be the same distance up from there, but does that change if only putting in one reef?
3. How are those using standard sail reef points doing theirs? ie: Two line reefing, single line reefing, reef line at clew/hook at luff, other?
In my research it looks like the jiffy reefing needs more hardware to implement and that would require just about as much more hardware for each additional reef point. On a boat like the DS II I don't see how the "reef line at clew/hook at luff" setup would be that difficult to do, but then again I'm not that experienced. Hence the questions. Any sage advice and or pictures of your reefing setups would be appreciated.
Thanks,
John Brannen