Last fall we bought new sails and a Tides Marine Sail Track and Slide system (formerly known as a Strong Track). The sails we got from Island Planet Sails in Reno, NV. We were acquaintances with the owner when he briefly had a boat at our marina.
Sails
After a few hours of measuring, we finally decided on a 106% jib with partial reefing foam in the luff and Weathermax UV cover in cadet gray; the staysail is self-tending and we didn’t change the design from the original; and the mainsail is fully battened with 4 tapered battens made by Robichaud, loose footed with two reef points and we shorted it by about 23″ to fit our shortened boom. They’re all made of Challenge Marblehead HA 7.62 oz.
Sail Track
We’ve known for a while that we wanted a different sail track system. The sail track in our mast has given us nothing but problems since day one. We had a hard time raising the mainsail during the survey! It seemed no amount of cleaning or lubing would solve the problem. Most times we were afraid to raise the main for fear it wouldn’t come down.
We heard a lot of really good reviews of the Tides Marine sail track system so that’s what we decided to get. First we had to figure out what size of sail track we needed. Tides Marine sent us some measuring disks to figure it out. But we also had to use feeler gauges to get it exactly right.
Next we had to enlarge the sail track gate on the mast by cutting a larger opening. The sail track comes rolled up in a big pizza-style box. Once we had the track, we had to run it up the mast to measure for the amount we would have to cut off the top. Then we had to pull the track down, cut and bevel the top and drill a hole for the stop-pin. Finally, we ran the track back up the mast and installed the cover over the gate at the bottom.
The slides then had to be attached to the sail itself through the webbing and secured with clevis pins. There are three types of slides: one for the headboard, four for the battens and smaller ones for the intermediate slides.
