My train of thought has it simpler to step into the galley area and pull the centerboard line from a standing position vs. bending over to pull from it's stock position.
Maybe use an acrylic tube so you can see where the pulley is at? I find this useful especially when trying to get the CB down as where the line is in the cleat doesn't always tell you where the CB is. But the end of the cable (where I have the 2:1 block) does tell you where the CB is and its easy to see (especially if you are sailing).
Also, the point of bringing the control to the cockpit is (in my opinion) mostly for single hand performance sailing. If you always sail with crew, its pretty easy for someone to go below and run the CB. If they are not that strong, the simplest thing to is just add the 2:1 like Paul Brinkley did in the picture shown on the previous page. Even for single hand where you are only raising the CB getting on and off the trailer, it works fine just to go below. I think I have owned this boat for something like nine years and did that the whole time.. not really a problem with the stock setup or slightly modified stock setup.
But for the single hand where you are trying to get a little more performance out of the boat, this is where you should consider bringing the line out to the cockpit (and you can see a bunch of ways to do this in this thread).
For the single hand sailing (which I do almost every time I sail and almost prefer to single hand sail this boat just because its fun), here is where the cockpit control is useful
* if you do long down wind sails, raise the CB all the way into the trunk. My opinion.. the classics have a fairly low drag hull and its especially low drag with nothing at all extra in the water except the rudder. For this to matter much, everything else about the boat should have performance considered.
* even for mostly down wind, you can raise the CB most of the way. This changes the foil from high aspect to low aspect swept back which wont have as good of Lift to drag but it should have lower drag.
* if you race in very light winds where boat isnt moving fast, the high aspect CB is prone to stall when you want to change tacks. Im not sure how well this works but in theory you could raise the CB most of the way up and turn it into a low aspect foil which should be less prone to stall.
* the 26S centerboard handles grounding very well (it just drags.. goes up on its own) but you can also raise it for shallow sailing. I used to pick up a mooring ball single handed in shallow water and the cockpit control would have been useful for this.
But.. for just getting the boat on and off the trailer.. my opinion.. not worth the hassle/ holes and cuts usually needed to implement.
