My sail has reefing points. However, there's only one position to catch the main halyard in the little notch at the tip of the mast. A friend told me that he had a 16 without the comptip, and the cable section of the halyard was longer, with another position to catch the halyard on the mast, for reefing. Lacking that, I'm wondering if it would work just to cleat the halyard in place. Would this work?

You should be able to. I have sailed an entire day without having the halyard properly into the notch, so only the halyard made off onto the cleat was holding the sail up.
It could pull the cleat off.

mma600psi

....It could pull the cleat off.

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. Having the cleat ripped out of the mast, or the sail ripped out of the mast track, would not be too wonderful. Especially because the only time I would do this would be when the wind is really strong.

Anyone else have any experience/ideas on this?

by not having the halyard "bead" seated in the fork on top of your mast, and tying it off at the base (or close to the base on a cleat) you have just turned your halyard into a 2-1 system doubling the stress/tension on your mast.

You are talking about reefing,which is ONLY done in heavy air so that would not be the time to double your tension (esp with a comp tip)

Yeah. Can't reef it. I guess I just need a heavier crew!

Why not attaching a separate line to extend the main halyard the same lenght that teh main leach will be shortened when reefing. By the use of a pigtail solution, i.e. using dyneema attaching one end to the end of the main halyard and a schackel at the lower end of the dyneema pig tail to be attached to the top of the main. With this solution you can still "bead" the halyard at the top off your mast and by this not having a cleat at teh mast base take the load.

Further see topic on official HC forum: http://www.hobiecat.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=23462

Brgds, Johannes

You can just add another nicro press fitting at the proper spot for reefing. Just cut the halyard at the thimble where the rope halyard meets the wire halyard, slide the new fitting to its proper place and nicro press it and then replace the thimble and nicro press it. The halyard will only be a few inches shorter and it will not matter as it will be at the opposite end from where the fittings for the fork are located. West marine has all the tools that you need to complete this job, all you have to do is buy the 2 fittings that you will need from them, and they let you use the tools for free.

Hobie stopped putting reef points in after they added the comp tip.

my GUESS is that lowering the head of the sail while reefing caused to much stress on the comp tip...

you may want to contact Matt Miller at hobie (he is always on the forums there) and see if he thinks its ok to reef with a comp tip