[Public-list] Reefing lines

[edward schroeder]

 "Emotional Rescue", #303, is a club boat with skippers of varying capabilities. I would like to keep the less sure-footed skippers off the cabin top when it starts to "blow". I want to bring each of the two continuous reef lines back to the cockpit. I know how to do that.
 
What I can't figure out is what to do with the 2 or 3 lower sail slides on the mast track. Now, we have two sets of heavy-duty reef rings, one each even with the rows of reef nettle lines on the sail. We lower the main to one of the reef tack rings, pass the ring over the hook on the gooseneck and then tighten the main halyard. To allow the sail slides to lower on the mast, we now need to go forward to pull out the sail slide holder pin in the mast track. The pin is about 2 feet above the gooseneck to allow the putting on and taking off of the sail. If we did not have the holder pin there, the mainsail slides would drop out of the track every time we normally lowered the mainsail.
 
What have others done? Ed. Schroeder