Adding a second reef
The boat came with but a single reef on the mainsail, but cringles for a second one. Unfortunately, there weren't enough deck organizer sheaves or rope clutches to accommodate a second reef, so I had to add these. The boat uses a double-line reefing system (one line for the tack, another for the clew), so this meant two extra sheaves and two extra rope clutches.
The original port-side Schaefer deck organizer just before I removed it.
You can see the three filled in holes from the original Schaefer organizer, plus the two new holes for the new Harken organizers. What you can't see is that I reamed out the core material to about 1/4" in the new holes, then filled with a thickened epoxy mixture.
The boat came with two Schaefer triple-sheave deck organizers. I replaced these with stacked Harken two-sheave organizers, for four sheaves total on each side.
After removing the old Schaefer organizers, I filled the old holes with epoxy. Then I drilled the new holes for the Harken organizers. Using a bent nail chucked into a drill, I reamed out the balsa core in the new holes. Then I taped the bottom and filled the holes with thickened epoxy. Finally, I drilled out the epoxy out to the correct size.
The finished port-sized deck organizer (click to enlarge).
The next job was to add an extra rope clutch to the cabin top. On the starboard side, I simply moved the existing clutches over to port about an inch, opening up enough space to squeeze in a new clutch on the starboard side. Because the cabin top is not cored in this area, this was a simple job.
The starboard rope clutches. By moving the clutches over slightly to port, there was enough room to squeeze the extra clutch in on the right and still have a fair lead through the slot in the dodger coaming. (Click to enlarge)
Unfortunately, things weren't so simple on the port side. While taking the headliner off to gain access to the underside of the cabin was easy enough on the starboard side, on the port side it would have required removing a door frame and part of the companionway! So, I decided to forgo the clutch, and instead use one of the existing clutches for the second reef tack line. That meant some other line had to go. I ended up moving the whisker pole topping lift to a cam-block at the base of the mast.