I'll add some comments about the
Dutchman, but take note that these are newbie comments: I've only had the boat 2 years, and it's my first boat with a mainsail furling system and mainsail reefing. Some of these observations may be from things I'm doing wrong. I'd be happy to hear what others are doing.
As to the main purpose of the Dutchman, I give it an “
A.” It flakes the main sail very well and very easily while lowering sail. I always lower the main single-handed whether I'm with others or not. I lubed the sail slugs & sail track this year, so it's almost a one-handed operation. I release the halyard, and the sail flakes itself neatly into even folds on alternating sides of the boom. In light winds, that's it--no sail ties required-- I just motor in like that, maybe pull the creases out of a few flakes, and throw the sail cover on. In stronger winds some of the flaked bundles can still catch the wind and fly up vertically, but they can never flop over the boom because of the Dutchman control lines. So, in stronger winds I will attach a sail tie or two while motoring in.
The system also looks great. The thin mono-filament lines are almost invisible in white or clear. I purchased some new line from Dutchman this year (about $40), about a week before discovering $10 rolls of clear weed-trimmer line at Ace Hardware. Now I have lots of spare line.
As for Cons:
Of course, the biggest one is that you have to have any sail altered before you can use it. The sail must have a dozen or more grommets/slots sewn/pressed into it so the control lines can pass through alternating sides of the sail. I have no idea what the added cost for this would be on a new sail.
Second, a standard sail cover won't fit over the control lines, so you have the problem of having two or three slits in the side of the sail cover.
Third, there is always some interplay between the topping lift and the sail itself (the control lines attach to the topping lift above, and to the foot of the sail below). If the topping lift is too loose and sagging, it catches on the roach or battens. If the topping lift is too tight, the control lines affect the shape of the sail by limiting its camber. So, it seems to require a bit of extra fiddling with the topping lift (as a result, I led my topping lift aft on the boom). And, then there's the newbie mistake of forgetting to raise the topping lift before releasing the main halyard. Rather than getting a cockpit full of boom, the control lines bear all the weight of the boom/sail and are drawn taught--a pretty surefire setup for catastrophically snapping the lines eventually.
I've also been experimenting with mainsail reefing. With a Dutchman, you can't control which side of the boom the reefed sail will bunch up on--it's always going to split evenly between the port and starboard sides of the boom. With a slug-footed main and flaked bundles on both sides of the boom, it's hard to work the reef outhaul around the mast without it scrunching up a whole bunch of sail underneath it. I'm wondering if most non-Dutchman sailors bunch the sail up to one side or the other of the boom when reefing?
Here's a copy of the Dutchman manual for anyone interested:
http://dutchmar.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Dutchman-B-2013.pdf