To take the sails down I usually head into the wind, drop the
jib, tie-off the
jib, drop the main, then flake and tie off the main.
In extremely windy conditions (~30 kts) the jib tends to 'fly up' on its own and fill (or flog) even without halyard tension. I used to just tie the sail closed, but when its very windy even just a bit of the head can catch wind and start to run up the forestay. It turns out that if I tie the jib head to the bow rail with a sail tie, the jib stays well behaved even without other sail ties on the body. This observation formed the basis of the idea I described above.
Incidentally, even if I didn't mind doing it the 'hard way' during the worst jib takedown it took my so long the flogging main ripped a batten pocket -- which is something I would like to avoid in the future.
Its encouraging that traditionalists use the same idea -- I was very skeptical of the idea being a good one if truly no one else used it.
To answer the previous poster's question, the boat is a 32' Discovery sloop. You can see a picture here:
http://www.sailnet.com/forums/introd...oy-sf-bay.html
Regards,
--
Joe