Hi all,
Thanks for all the great info... My reasoning for being able to get the
sail down quickly is that simpler is generally better in my view. If i
can smoothly get the main down in a minute or two that would make
things a lot easier for beaching, ditto for rigging underway. If
someone else happens to be sailing with me and i go overboard then they
are much more likely to be able to remember a simple one handed one
action instruction than something more complex, especially in a
panicked emergency situation.

My boat is small, but it has a lot more bouyancy than most 14' cats.
The previous owner sailed it sydney to brisbane, and a lot of people in
queensland use them for sailing around the islands up there
(whitsundays especially). Jesse Martin sailed one with his brother and
father from brisbane to cape york. There is flotation for about 6
adults, or 4 people with camping gear and food for 4 days, or one
person and _lots_ of stuff. There is an outboard bracket on the back,
and my one has a 5hp on it which pushes it along at a fair clip. Its
handy having the little outboard on there when the wind is tricky or
absent, or for 'oh Sh**' situations, but i think i'd get a lot more
utility out of it if i could quickly raise/lower the sails. I cant
keep it pointed into the wind for more than about 5 seconds when im on
it alone, which is nowhere near enough time to throw in an anchor,
start the outboard, pickup a mooring or just pick my nose. As it is
with the pointless halyard system i've got it takes about 10 minutes to
raise/lower the sails. putting a reef in is trickier because reefing
was added after the fact and was not very well implemented.

My jib is about 40%, and unlike a lot of cats there is a front cross
member and two forestays with the jib being on its own wire luff.
While you could theoretically remove the jib on the water i wouldnt
want to try it in anything other than a dead flat calm day ;-) I've
look at these simple furling systems on hobie 14 turbos and owners have
all comented favourably on the utility of it. I can add this to my
boat for under AU$200 so it looks pretty worthwhile. The main has one
of those 'locking wire' type fittings at the masthead, but the current
halyard is rope so i get no utility from it. I've thought of going for
one of the locking wire types, and hadnt considered the reduced
compression load on the mast which is a good point. My mast has
spreaders which helps, but im sure it was designed originally not to
have the extra load of the halyard going to the step. Thinking about
it more though, wouldnt the stress load on the mast be the same....?
It seems to me that the total load would be equal, if it was fized at
the mast head then it would be 100% there, or if it want through a
block and back to the bottom then it would be the same load but half at
the top, half at the bottowm. Now that i think about it more, it makes
pretty good sense having the locking wire type, they can be tricky to
hoist, but are fast to undo..... the question is though; can you reef
with this type of system? is it possible to have multiple locks swaged
onto the wire? The main halyward is tensioned by downhaul rather than
halyard tension.

It looks like roller furling for the jib, and some other (preferably
fast simple) means of fixing the main halyard. I'm going to employ the
travelling block on the downhaul, i've only got 1:1 gong to a clam
cleat and i can never get enough tension on it... i end up having to
sit on the mast while trying to lock the downhaul at the same time...
can be amusing for bystanders if the mast is slippery ;-) As an aside
is there anything that can be done to make the luff slide easier up the
mast? dry lubricants or such?

thanks for all the excellent comments,
Shaun