I'm glad to hear that your boat has arrived. You must be gagging to get out on the water! The Taipan is certainly a beautiful thing in the flesh.

I can help you with question 3. How are the dagger board pull up lines rigged?

Both boards use the same line so it is continuous. The next description is of how it ends up but not neccessarily how you rig it. Once you understand how the line ends up you will work out the best way to do it.

It is easiest to understand the threading of this line if the boards are sitting in the trunks so that the small hole in them is at deck level.

On each side of the daggerboard trunk on top of the hulls there is a eyelet thingy (fairlead?). [There may be only a fairlead on the inside on your boat]. Starting from the outside eyelet on any side, the line goes through the eyelet, through the small hole in the daggerboard then through the eyelet on the inside of the trunk. The line then crosses to the other side of the boat, goes through the inside eyelet, through the hole in the daggerboard then through the outside eyelet. A figure eight knot is tied in each end of the line so that it doesn't pull through the outside eyelets. If there is an eyelet on the inside only, you start at the daggerboard and end at the other daggerboard.

What you end up with is in effect a two to one pulley for pulling up the dagger boards. [or one to one if there is only one eyelet.] In practice you would start from the middle and work outwards on each side so that you have less line to thread.

The daggerboards can be held up quite nicely while on the beach or while leaving the beach by using the dogbone and the handle on the trapeze wire. The method is too difficult to explain, yet very simple, so I'll let you try and work it out for yourself. You end up with the top loop in the dogbone hooked up on one side of the handle after you've done a wrap around the handle on the dagger board.

I hope that was clear and is this is how your boat is supposed to be. The system on my boat is slightly different so if anyone that has the standard system does it differently please let Eric know.

Question 6: is the pin left in the mast step while sailing?

There are a few different systems. On my boat I connect only the bridle then step the mast from directly ahead and I leave the pin in. Another system requires that you attach the bridle and one shroud and step the mast from the front of the boat but at an angle. I don't know whether the pin is left in in this case, Jennifer?

There is a third method of stepping the mast shown in the Owners Manual of the AHPC website where the mast is stepped from the rear. http://www.ahpc.com.au . I don't know whether the pin is left in in this case either.

Q.5. What is the line attached to the underside of each
end of the front crossbar and attached to a small
bungey? Righting line? How is it held up?

The description sounds like your righting line. The righting line on my boat is as you describe. The bungey (which is about two metres long I guess) is connected to the righting line with a plastic ring which allows the bungey to slide along the righting line when you use it. The bungey which is connected to this plastic ring heads off towards the rear beam where there is a small pulley under the tramp soley for this purpose. The bungey goes through the pulley then forwards to the vertical pole on the dolphin striker where it is tied off with just enough tension to keep the righting line out of the water. Don't have the bungey any tighter than you need to keep the righting line sitting flat(ish) or you end up with too much tension on the bungey when you use the righting line.

On my boat the righting line passes through a couple of stainless loops (one on each side of the front beam) and is prevented from pulling back through by a plastic ball on each end of the line. When I capsize it is a simple matter of grabbing the ball at the top, pulling the righting line through, putting a couple of wraps of line around the hook on my harness (so that when the righting line goes tight I am at the right height above the water to right the boat), then heave.

Once the boat is up again you let go of the righting rope (which you will have done when you made the grab for the dolphin striker) and the bungey pulls it back into place ready for the next time. This is a very simple and effective system.

NB. The bungey for the skipper's trapeze passes through a hole in each hull then under the tramp. I thread this bungey so that it goes underneath the righting rope to help to hold it up out of the water.

I hope this was of some help.
Rob.

See also: http://www.geocities.com/f16hpclass/ahpc_taipan_49_how_to_rig.html