Reefing tack help needed

[bwindrope]

Thanks so much Brian and Ian,
I like both your ideas. Your shared opinion that reefing hooks are best removed coincides with my own at this point. It is too hard to use (impossible for my wife), bad for sail shape, and jeopardizes the only gooseneck attachment bolt. Good to have confirmation from more experienced folks like you.

So now it is just a question of what to do instead. I like the line idea, and see it would work well as described. Everything has pros and cons. Cons could be that you have permanent lines dangling and flailing, may have chafe problems where the line goes through the eye, and I have to install two more cleats on the mast.

For Ian's idea, I am not clear on how you are anchoring the pendant you describe? When you say pendant, do you mean a length of normal line? In that case, are you just bringing it straight down to a cleat on the mast? Also, if you have a loose line attached to each reef tack, what keeps those lines from not just blowing all over in the breeze when not being used? I can't quite picture it, sorry for my lack of imagination.

My main does already have Orings sewn with webbing into both luff cringle eyes. So it is easier to hook it onto something like the loose hook on line I was asking about before these other good ideas.

I should have also said that I am installing a two line system and my halyards and winches are at the mast so I already go forward. Also, my topping lift is controllable at the gooseneck too, so that is good.

For my leech cringles, I got a good idea from Bill Seifert's book "Offshore Sailing" about permanently installing small blocks with webbing and Orings and then bringing that down to the boom and through the usual cheek block and stuff. He said running a line through the leech eye will chafe through in short order in really stormy conditions and that having the line go through the block prevents this. Makes sense to me.

Thanks again for your valued advice.