mehitabel's experience is that the furled bundle behaves well in the lifts in any wind, and there's never a need to use extra ties to tame loose fabric. 'No deck work' philosophy.

But I often tie the bundles near the mast and at ~3/4 chord, for two reasons: 

1) The reefed sails shape better, with less twist and a tighter leach (matters most if sailing to windward - into shelter, say.) 

2) If I'm thinking about gybing and the wind is very strong, and the bundles are already bundled, it's safe to do (however dramatic.)

So I have beckets pre-fed through eyelets just above whichever batten, and I catch the becket each side of the sail and tie under with a slip reef knot. Easy to undo when I round up to raise sail. Easy enough to move the beckets according to optimism, or precaution.

(If I had batten pockets, I'd have punched holes through for the purpose by now.)

In the Trades, I'll go around for days with unnecessary reefs tied in unnecessarily. The little sails work really well, and I can't always be bothered to haul up the whole lot and take longer getting off anchor, just to take longer dropping it all to get anchored again several hours later. 'No extra work' philosophy.

Cheers, Kurt

Steve,

I find that the sails I use set almost better and better as I reef. They work exceptionally well with only three or two panels up, and the reefed bundle stays quiet. It is best not to have too much balance, i.e. sail before the mast when reefing, or the reefed bundle may flutter at the luff (..there is no lazyjack before the mast, as my sails have quite little balance.). It seems to me that the stout webbing I use at luff and leech, discourages the sail from fluttering. I haven’t  been in a ‘one panel wind’ yet, but I guess that would call for tying the top (un-sheeted) batten down in the aft end.  I would recommend using a fan-up preventer, though, to reduce the likelihood of serious trouble in a sudden gybe.

Arne

For those with storm experience:  do the 'collapsed' lower panels simply lie peacefully in the lazy-jacks, or, when sail is greatly reduced, do you need to further secure the collapsed panels to keep the 'reefed' fabric and battens from flapping about in severe conditions?  Thank you.