A couple of notes. The original boat as designed by George Steers and per his sail plan drawings had four sails.
A boomless jib, a boomless foresail, a boomed mainsail and a gaff topsail on the main mast. She didn't have a fore topmast either. The gaff topsail wasn't fitted however.
So she sailed to England under three sails. Sometime in England before the race she picked up a gaff topsail and a club boom for the jib.
So the six sails on the model and the fore topmast came quite a bit later, say around the Civil War. And she lost the club in the original race.
In 1852 she was able to pole out her mainsails on downwind legs, but a model with sails would have the booms centered.
Such a rig would be an easy boat to sail with a small crew, as was true of her pilot boat ancestors.
It seems the newer releases have a jib boom on the bowsprit and a dolphin striker. Uggh, not anything the racer had.
A way to cut out those vac sails is to get a sharpie type pen and carefully run it around the perimeter of the sail. This assumes you'll be painting the sail linen color, which would be a must.
Parftly on account of what Capn pointed out, and because she's a racer, it's one of the few (and they're all schooners) that IMO look good as models with sails.
I have those original fabric sails in the box; you aren't missing anything.
I have seen one single picture of her with lowered sails. The fore mainsail was gathered up against the mast and gaff. That wouldn't be too hard to do if one was up for climbing the mast hoops.
The mainsail gaff is lowered on the sail onto the boom.
The BJ plans are kind of a must. You will need to reduce them. I chose 1/64 as the scale, based on the distance between the masts.
It would be a bit of a challenge to find a piece of paper big enough for the mainsails.
I think painting the plastic sails can be successful. Be prepared to carefully punch hundreds of holes along the head, luff and foot of the sails.
One detail never seen on a schooner model under sail is all of the ends of the sheets and halyards. Think ropes a hundred feet long. Those got bundled up and thrown into wire baskets attached to the sides of the deck houses. NOT coiled on the deck.