The PO left us with a goofy rig for the lower part of the mainsail. We have a Tides Marine Strong Track. A number of the lower mainsail eyelets are not attached directly to cars (slugs). Instead a rope is run through the plastic connectors (sorry, I don't know the technical term for these). To have one car for each eyelet for direct connections we would have to add 6 more cars. I suspect that part of the reason the POs went with this set up is that the head of sail is difficult to reach. I can just barely reach it standing on a single fold-down mast step. An additional 6 cars would be another 6 inches or so to reach the head of the sail and make it impossible for me to reach and attach the halyard, which is also used as the topping lift to aid the rigid boom vang when not attached to the mainsail.
My current thinking is it would be best to buy the additional cars (wow are they pricey!) and make the direct attachments to the sail eyelets. The head of the sail goes to the black mark on the mast, so it appears there is about a foot of extra distance between the head of the sail and the halyard sheave. Is it a reasonable solution to make a short cable pennant that remains attached to the head of the sail, then attach the halyard to the pennant? Any other options I am not considering? I suppose adding another mast step would be an option, but that seems more complicated and I'm not that excited about climbing higher on a potentially pitching deck.
My current thinking is it would be best to buy the additional cars (wow are they pricey!) and make the direct attachments to the sail eyelets. The head of the sail goes to the black mark on the mast, so it appears there is about a foot of extra distance between the head of the sail and the halyard sheave. Is it a reasonable solution to make a short cable pennant that remains attached to the head of the sail, then attach the halyard to the pennant? Any other options I am not considering? I suppose adding another mast step would be an option, but that seems more complicated and I'm not that excited about climbing higher on a potentially pitching deck.