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Unless you are exclusively into competitive racing, I'd back away from tape drive and other exotic (read expensive) sails and stick to a quality dacron. Quantum offers a hard "racing" dacron that we used on one of our boats. It was fast and is still looking good after several years' racing in generally strong breezes. If cruising is your focus (eg daysailing and gunkholing) then a quality dacron sail will give you years of service. You'll be amazed at the improvement over the old sail.
Re; spinnaker snuffers/socks, they do work but involve more rigging, the sock is always scrunched up at the top of the rig and are normally found on assymetrical (poleless) cruising chutes rather than conventional spinnakers. I'd favour getting the techniques down for spinnaker handling with a conventional poled chute (not so difficult on a 30' boat) and you'll get improved performance and the ability to sail deeper more comfortably than a cruising chute.
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