I have modified my needle nose plyers by grinding the sharp point off to better torque the locking pin of the shackle. My fingers are mostly thumbs. Also tie lanyards to all my tools with wrist loops.
Hope you get your summer Terry so you can sail with that new bad-boy furler. I'm not sure I understand the tack attachment issue on the drum, but if it's a pin, maybe get one of those spinnaker shackles attached to the pin. The kind with a ring you pull to release. Can be used to attach the tack... I thought that is how the furler came?? My rig tension is currently about same as yours for uppers and lowers. Turbuckle is set to minimal, just enough to get all the threads into the tb and the pins. (2 inches shorter cable than stock.) This gives about zero rake with a bit of mast bend.. very nice. No way to measure the tenison on the forestay due to the furler but when not under load with the sail furled, it's quite noodly. Can't imagine the cable doesn't have a few hundred pounds of load on it, considering the shrouds being at 470 lbs uppers, 240 lbs lowers... so it must be the CDI unit.
I'm going to wait a while, just becuase of the cost, but I think a CF700 may be in my future. Lowest price I found was at Defender @ $900 plus $100 shipping. I recall you got a much better price. Can you post that link. Thx.
