John - When I first started, I had the reefing lines start near the aft end of the boom, up to the reefing clew point, down to a block on the boom, forward along the boom, through a block, up to the reefing tack point, down to the goose neck, through a ring, down to the deck, through a pulley and back to the cockpit. This created a lot of friction. Later I met Derrick Hatfield in the Azores and he showed me his setup on his Open 40. Thats what I use now. There are 3 short lengths of rope (one for each reef) attached to the mast below the goose neck. The problem with the tack hooks is that only one reef can fit on them at a time and they fall off the hook before you can get the halyard tight. The tack line is hand feed through the reefing tack point and tied to a cleat on the mast below the goose neck. The clew reefing line now starts near the aft end of the boom, up to the reefing clew point, down to a block on the boom, forward along the boom, through a block at the goose neck, down to the deck, through a pulley and back to the cockpit. To reef, you pull up the topping lift, let the halyard down the correct amount, go forward and attach the short reefing line at the tack, back to the cockpit, pull in the clew reefing line and tighten the halyard, release the topping lift. I do not use any of those foot long ties in the sail between the tack and clew. When putting in a second reef, do the same without touching the first one. So when you take out the second reef, the first one is still in place. Since the reefs add on top of each other, it also means that even with 3 reefs all the loose sail is held in by the earlier reefing lines and does not flop around. I noticed that Derrick's new open 60 has the tack reefing lines always through the tack reefing point and the lines lead aft. This is even better since you do not need to go forward at all. My lines are quarter inch which is just enough, but I have ripped the blocks off the boom on several occasions. They are on with 2 one-eighth rivets.
Unfortunately I have been working and only sailing locally. I am still looking forward to a trip to Australia, but it is a few years off. I bought the latest edition of "World Cruising Routes" to help keep the plan alive.
rbporter - I love the monitor. I have 11,000nm on it without any real problems. The cape horn looks a bit flimsy. The main problem I had with the other brands is that they could not be mounted on the center line due to the outboard rudder. I when to the San Fran boat show and talked with all the manufacturers. Some said "No problem, we just put a longer blade on it". Others said, " no you can not use ours. it must be on the center so it is set up the same on each tack." I did like one that was manufactured here in Ontario, but it was just coming out as I was buying and it had no track record. I knew that the monitor worked on the Contessa.