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.