Thanks, Phill, for mentioning pull-up and pull-down lines for daggerboards.
I have pullup lines for my NACRA 55uni daggerboards, copied from a local guy who sailed solo all the time. Main use is to avoid crossing to the leeward side of boat to raise boards at windward mark, when wind is blowing. I can also drop the boards right before a leeward mark rounding without changing sides. It is also useful for beaching, and to clear daggerboards of seagrass, which has happened to me.
Description : I mounted a cleat on deck next to the board. Behind the cleat is a turning block that leads the line up to a bullet block on the shroud/sidestay, said line then attaches to top/handle of board. It is same on both sides, continuous line across the tramp.
I have not installed pull-downs, I let gravity do the work, but there are compromises. If gravity can pull them down, then they are pretty loose in the wells, and in light air, will flop around a bit. They also may not drop completely due to being loaded (i.e. going upwind already before remebering to drop), or because of friction between board & hulls, etc. I'm considering adding pull-down lines, but don't like too many lines.
Hope this gives you something to think about, Mary.

Itis likely some hull designs do not have daggerboards placed near the shrouds, so system with block above the board may not work. An earlier version of the pullup system had the "pullup" turning block *IN* the daggerboard itself, positioned so it was still "inside" the hulls when fully lowered. Bsed on hull "depth" and board length, his meant that board could not be fully raised, and coming to the beach required manual removal of boards.

Jim-
Mary was asking about a Taipan 4.9 and there are "pullup" lines on the boards from the factory w/ the lines integral in the board "cutout" as you describe (see attachment). It is a fairly simple matter to rig a "pulldown" line to the Taipan (and Auscat's they are modeled after) boards by adding a second set of eyes (or standup blocks if you wanted to get fancy) next tot he standard "pullup" eyes with a line from the top of the board "handle", through the eye and across tramp to other board. Line lengths are set so when board is up/down the line you would want to pull is fairly snug across the tramp and a simple tug up, back or forward will raise/lower both boards simultaneously. Very handy on solo boats!

Kirt

Kirt, Rick says the pull-up daggerboard system that comes with the Taipan 4.9 does not pull the boards up high enough to clear grass.

What we really need is a remote control -- just push buttons on the remote and the daggerboards and rudders go up and down .

^ What weight you'd put on in electric motors and batteries you'd not benefit enough by merely clearing your surfaces of seaweed

C'mon, don't ruin a good dream with practicalities.

Mary-
Hmm, the boards are only down a few inches at most with the current system- You could either raise up the little "eye" on the deck a couple of inches, round off the front of your boards (separate set of boards?), route out the "groove" and drill a new hole so the current system would raise them enough, or put a "weedless" type SS "spring" (along the lines of weedless fishooks) on the bottom of the hull sticking down just far enough to keep the weeds/clear the weeds off the few inches not drawn into the well.

Kirt