Can I tighten the mainsheet while I hoist the sail?

[LordElsinore]

When I bought my boat it came with a massively long main halyard along with some other things that apparently was an "EZ Sail Package" from BWY. I'll describe the halyard first since it relevant the last few posts

The massively long halyard from that kit is left aft to the cabin, then is supposed to turn around in a loop back up to the mast where it gets tied to an eyelet at the bottom portion of the head of the sail to act as a down haul. So you've gone one big long continuous halyard loop that can be pulled on one side to hoist the sail or pulled on the other side to help bring the sail down. I used to rig it like that all the time, but when I got a new sail with slugs instead of a bolt rope, the sail pretty much dropped itself with not too much help when I released the halyard so I stopped doing it. I should probably try it again because it could be handy in sticky situations.

The other thing that was part of that kit was pretty cool and I wish my new sail had it. (I ordered the new sail from BWY so maybe I could have asked if they still offer this, but I did not). I'll see if I can describe it. The topping lift had a couple thin dyneema lines that ran straight down through some grommets in the sail (kind of like the reef point grommets where you can pass a sail tie through) and attached at a tab in the foot of the sail at the boom. There was one of these tiny lines near the front and one at the back. This made it so that when the topping lift was tight (topping lift line also led aft to the cabin so it was easily adjustable) the main would stay nice and aligned as you raised or lowered it without blowing everywhere out the side of the boom while doing it. I remember their instructions for it saying something like "now that EZ Sail has been developed, there is no longer any need for lazy jack lines" etc. It was a pretty cool set up, but since it was my first time with a "real" sail boat I didn't fully appreciate it.

My new sail, which doesn't have that setup, definitely has to be raised when going into the wind so that the battens don't catch in the lazy jack lines of the sail pack on the way up. It's "fine", but I do miss the convenience those thin lines gave