Here is a shot of the control lines for the main sail. Both sails are rigged the same way. We have found that a yard hauling parrell, a luff hauling parrell and a down haul to be equally useful. The down haul is mostly used when we are lazy and do not want to go forward to haul down the last two panels that gravity does not take care of. However, in heavy sailing it becomes a real bonus for getting the sail down in a nice controled manner. We wrap it in the halyard winch and crank the thing down in all conditions.
The luff hauling parrell is perhaps one we would do away with if we someone told us we had to make a choice. We use it mainly to keep the sail from racking in sloppy, light air conditions. If the wind is blowing, I prefer to leave it slack.
The yard hauling parrell is vital and cannot be done away with. I would add a bit more extra length than I did however. Our passage from Palmyra to Hawaii was close hauled into 20-25knots of trade winds for 13 days on the same tack. The yard hauling parrell nearly chaffed through. Easy enough to remedy if you have the length to cut off. I had to end-for-end the lines as I did not leave enough extra to cut away. No harm done, just a note out of hindsight.
Initially I used half inch line for the sheets and halyards. The halyard is good. Last season I replaced the sheets with 3/8inch three strand nylon and the difference is night and day. The bigger stuff created way to much friction. As a result raising the sail was a bear. Also, due to the friction, we had no sense of when the sails were drawing in light airs. Now, with the smaller line, even a puff of wind will allow them to weather cock and them be sheeted in using feel to find the sweet spot. That was the single biggest thing we did that improved how we sailed the boat.
