Pete,
Go to ahpc's site and look under the viper's page and look at the manuals. One of them will have diagrams of how the halyard is sit up. It shows both ways, the single line and the seperate line system. In my opinion the single line system would be better for singlehanded and or inexperienced crews. I use the single line sysytem that's shown and will stay with that, unless I get a pretty steady crew. To me, there's way too much stuff going on for single handed people to have the seperate line system. I do have to admit though, the seperate system that is in the diagram is pretty slick compared to others I've seen.