Hi, Matt-
I'm sure the 3rd winch, as configured on the 42, will go a long way to making the system more usable. There's certainly advantages to each system, and I think if I had a cat with the German mainsheet running rigging that had a dedicated winch for each of the two sheets, I'd be happy. On a reach, if you need to quickly depower, you often can't do it effectively with just the windward or leeward sheet, and to trim the main properly in general you need to play with both, whereas with a traveler you can roughly set the amount of boom lift/twist with the sheet and then trim the sail for direction using the traveler. I think on the 4000, the winches are very much overly task-loaded and there's a lot of lines in a small space. I did like the 42's running rigging a lot better, those deep/generous line pockets are nice (but where are the winch handle pockets?? on the model we looked at, I couldn't find any place to stow the handles up there!). We're giving some consideration to finally becoming owners, having been "renting" with the Moorings for 35 years now! The 42 we looked at had a lot to like.
