Thanks for all the replies guys, it sure is a topic that one can have a good yarn over and discuss the perceived pros and cons. I've never been in anything over 80 odd knots and we did well running with bare poles so didn't have to deploy anything but we did have a monster of a parachute anchor onboard rigged up ready to go incase (I was sh*t scared of putting it out truth be said).
Ive managed to get a few leads from here, tracked down the guy from ozzie (as much as I would rather pay a kiwi haha) and working though some options.
A lot of my decision on which one to go with were base