Probably the biggest risk in using a L-F when not directly head-to-wind, comes when hoisting or shaking a reef OUT of the sail... That's where you really have to be careful about the amount of pressure upon the sail, and it's possible for the boltrope to not feed into the track properly... If that goes unnoticed, you can have big problems down the line in a building breeze, the entire luff can start to peel out of the track, or can simply jam and/or damage the sail...

Ideally, for short-handed or singlehanded sailing, the halyard and downhaul controls for a L-F should be at the mast, where the operator is right there at the gooseneck, and can keep a close eye on how things are going... However, the great appeal and principal selling point of these systems is that large mains can be reefed or doused with the mere push of a button without anyone ever having to leave the cockpit, and I have never seen a L-F installation without everything being led back to winches - usually electric - in the cockpit, usually under the dodger...

This can present a real problem on most boats, such a location can make it very difficult for the operator to simply observe what's happening at the gooseneck... I ran a Taswell 44 north last summer, and in the manner in which it was configured, it was impossible for me to activate the electric halyard winch while simultaneously getting my head outside of the stoopid full cockpit enclosure to simply monitor what was happening... It was very frustrating, and easily could have led to a jam or damage to the sail, if I didn't continually stop the hoist and then step out onto the deck to make sure everything was OK... That setup was a disaster waiting to happen, unfortunately many of these systems suffer from that sort of poor configuration, which can greatly contribute to problems with their operation that could easily be avoided...

Of course, the installation of a closed-circuit video camera at the mast might be the solution to such an issue... (grin)