I thought it had been already agreed around here that the claim that the mast destroys the efficiency of a mainsail is wrong? In that case, why go for hoops and a jackstay (which will involve considerable compression loads)?
What is the advantage of dropping a boomed sail instead of reefing it? In my limited experience I found dropping a ketch's mainsail a few hundred miles offshore was a PITA. You had to try to furl a sail sticking several feet above the deck onto a boom, while the wind got under it and flogged it around. Reefing the main or dropping a jib was much easier.
In your case, did the mainsail have lazy jacks?
If it didn't, I couldn't agree more.
With Lazy Jacks the sail is more or less contained, so the wind really can't blow it around.
From sitting at my desk, I can imagine it is far easier to lower a sail, which is then contained by Lazy Jacks, than it is to slab reef it.
On my Siren 17, I found reefing the Main to be a PIA.
I had to lower the sail, pin in the new Tack, tie in the new Clew, then bundle up the rest of the mess. All of this while I'm riding the swells up and down, like an unstoppable elevator, and the sail is fluttering like mad.
If I had bothered to rig Lazy Jacks, the whole operation would have been so much easier, but still there would have been the bit with the Tack, the Clew, and bundling.
By simply dropping the sail (made possible with the Mast-aft Cutter rig), I reason, I eliminate two of these three steps, leaving just the bundling.
As for the Jack Line, I reason it allows the Luff of the sail to somewhat end up on the lee of the mast. This is all the more important when you have a very tall, narrow main, and a fat compression tube for a Mast.
I keep in mind two things with my reasoning:
1.) the Jack Line holds only about 25% of the Main's area close to the Mast. The Hoops hold the other 75% of it. The Hoops hold not just that portion of the Sail Area there, but about half of the Jack Line as well.
2.) The Jack Line does add compression to the mast, but about 40-50% less than a single-part Halyard would, if it were trying to do the same job.
I know that in racing Lazy Jacks are rarely used, as they do cause some unwanted drag. And there are usually plenty of hands available, in proportion of the size of the boat too. In cruising, the crew is usually smaller and often far more tired, as they tend to be older and less able.
Durable, simple, and easy to repair, labor saving devices, such as Lazy Jacks are well worth the few percent loss of performance they may cause on a cruising boat. In fact, they might actually
add performance there, as the labor they save makes the crew less tired and able to perform better.
Attached is a sketch of a ketch rig design of mine, showing the Lazy Jacks, in case some thread followers don' know what they are. These are the spider web like lines crossing the Main Sail. Now that I look at it, that rig could use at least one more Lazy Jack, leading to the middle of the Boom.
Also attached is a sketch of my Mast-aft cutter, so readers can see that the 'Main' can be simply dropped, if the jib is too.
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