Thanks guys.... man I wish we had a neat downhaul like the AHPC boats... Tripp thought about it but gave up when he realized there wasn't enough room on the backside of our beam to do it.
Karl... i've seen Mike & Dave's too... thanks for the pictures... they helped convince me its the way to go..... i'll probably have it sorted out before I get down there

Dave:

I am trying to picture how you keep the lines on the boat and the mast for derigging. I have to take my downhaul line out of the beam to take the mast down and would like to avoid that if I could. Right now I have to remember to run a tracer line for the next time. Maybe you could show an illustration of your setup?

Dan

Dave... any chance you know the length of the part in the beam?

Todd, we did some fancy splicing (okay Chris did in Racine, okay, JC did it, okay, some rum helped it as well).

basically the splicing was:
- exposed the core on both ends, tucked the cover into them appropriately, aprox 8 inches on each end of exposed core).
- splice into the core a smaller dynema (like) line on each end by simply sliding it up the center of the exposed core of the actual downhaul on each end (chinees finger trap, aprox 4 inches each end). Did a bunch (read: twooooo many) locking stitches on each side. Easy to undo if needed (just cut the lock stitches on one side). You end up with about 4 inches of the smaller stuff exposed in the middle (12 inches total).

very very obvious there are other / better ways to do it, see first sentence for reasoning behing this particular scheme.... one word R A C I N E

Will show you at tradewinds if you don't have it by then. A lot of the C2s have it this way (Tony has our old boat, I know Robbie's is similar, JC's is the same).

(as I clearly don't have the boat in front of me, take all of the above with a huge grain of salt)

I should also note that on the Cap / C2 you don't have to undo the downhaul to take the mast down, it simply unshackles from the base of the mast, this may not be the case on other boats.

Todd, Dan

I use the same system as the drawing above except I use 2 lines and run mine out to the trap by using little rings tied to the trap lines. The beam line is 20'-6" and the smaller line running through the blocks is 15'-7" (you may need to trim some). I tie them together using a plate with 2 holes or 1 piece of a sister clip just put each line through one of the holes and tie a knot( 1 on each side of the mast). I have never had this come lose and it is pretty clean looking. You will have to recenter the system after buoy racing. The system is 16:1 and we use spin locks on the mast. My wife likes it and it is easy to use with one hand while trimming the main with the other. I don't have any photos but will take some next time the boat is set up.

Pat.... like I said... the Cap downhaul is sweet.... but can't work on an infusion.

Thanks Dave.... I have seen your system both on yours and Karls boat... very slick... I am going to do something just like it, or similar. The lengths help A LOT though.

I wanted to go to spin locks but the cost of them is really what kept me from doing it.
We went to 4mm FSE Dinghy Control... Tripp laughed at us, said it was too thin, then when we showed him how smooth it ran and how easily it uncleated he decided to try it. Neither of us have ever had a problem uncleating it no matter how much downhaul is on, given it's not as easy as a spinlock, but it's pretty easy and very reliable. I've sworn off spinlocks since having them give on us on spinnaker applications.