Thanks, Phill, for mentioning pull-up and pull-down lines for daggerboards.
I have pullup lines for my NACRA 55uni daggerboards, copied from a local guy who sailed solo all the time. Main use is to avoid crossing to the leeward side of boat to raise boards at windward mark, when wind is blowing. I can also drop the boards right before a leeward mark rounding without changing sides. It is also useful for beaching, and to clear daggerboards of seagrass, which has happened to me.
Description : I mounted a cleat on deck next to the board. Behind the cleat is a turning block that leads the line up to a bullet block on the shroud/sidestay, said line then attaches to top/handle of board. It is same on both sides, continuous line across the tramp.
I have not installed pull-downs, I let gravity do the work, but there are compromises. If gravity can pull them down, then they are pretty loose in the wells, and in light air, will flop around a bit. They also may not drop completely due to being loaded (i.e. going upwind already before remebering to drop), or because of friction between board & hulls, etc. I'm considering adding pull-down lines, but don't like too many lines.
Hope this gives you something to think about, Mary.

Itis likely some hull designs do not have daggerboards placed near the shrouds, so system with block above the board may not work. An earlier version of the pullup system had the "pullup" turning block *IN* the daggerboard itself, positioned so it was still "inside" the hulls when fully lowered. Bsed on hull "depth" and board length, his meant that board could not be fully raised, and coming to the beach required manual removal of boards.