Vinny,
You asked about reefing. Your boat must be an older boat to have the older style jib cars and cleats. Has it been retrofitted with a Comptip mast? My boat, an '85, does not have it, and the original sail had a reef point as well as a second "slug" on the halyard. That allowed the sail to be lowered to put in the reef. That second "slug" necessitated a longer wire on the end of the halyard. The Comptip mast is designed to protect you from electric wires hitting the top of the mast and travelling down to you. They apparently did away with the long wire on the halyard which would also transmit the electricity and along with it they did away with the reef point. I put in a reef once and didn't find any advantage to it. I never changed to the Comptip mast and still have the original halyard but my replacement sail has no reef point.
If your sail can be reefed, there would be no problem with the gooseneck. It would still go in the same location and be tied down with the downhaul.
Howard
I've reefed the main on a 16 twice in 25 years, so I'm no expert but...do not put any tension on your downhaul line. Let the gooseneck set "idle" in the mast track. Downhaul, in effect, is a depowering device. You've acheived that by reducing (reefing) the Main. The dacron cloth around those reefing grommets is not going to like much tension from a cranked on downhaul. I'd set the downhaul snug, no more.
