Do a lot of you guys epoxy a long piece of strong, thin webbing onto that little depression and hole on the daggers on your Blades so that you can pull them up from the other side of the boat? I had to bear of quickly in some pretty good breeze the other day and stuffed the bows pretty deep despite myself and my crew sitting at the back of the bus. It doesn't seem like you'd have a lot of purchase since you're pulling horizontally on the board. If you're going upwind at speed there is even more pressure resisting the boards pulling up. What works for you guys other than having the crew go to the low side to raise the board?

I use a piece of 3mm dyneema which goes through the little holes in the middle of both boards, tied with a figure 8 on the back side, and running across the tramp. I leave just enough slack to make one wrap around my fist, when both boards are fully down.

I race alone usually, so it really helps me to get the low side board up if needed, without having to go down there and grab it. Even when racing two up, it's much quicker for the crew to just grab the line and give it a good yank and the low board will pop right up, at least half way, without having to crawl under the boom and try to lift it.

Also, when coming ashore, it's easier and quicker to get them both up.

Does it chew into the dagger well rim? You must have some sort of reinforcement/tape? Whereas webbing probably distributes the pressure and avoid "flossing" out your boat.

I have not noticed it wearing...yet. The board gasket is right there so maybe that's taking some of the wear? A tape type line would be better for that I guess, but so far, so good on the dyneema.

It only gets yanked a couple of times per race, and there is that little indented well on top of the hull, where the flat top of the board recesses into, so it's not really going over the hull at a hard 90 degree angle, more like two 45's and the second one (in the actual dagger slot) has the top gasket there for protection.

Use uncoated spec line. This will be slick enough to not do any damage to gel or paint. Polyester jackets will wear a grove in just a few pulls.

Also note you can not raise the boards while they are under load

Thanks Matt. At the risk of sounding foolish...what is "spec line"? Spectra? I didn't see anything that sounded like that in the catsailor store or at APS.