dgadee
Well-Known Member
Is it worth getting intermediate ball slides (in place of the plastic slugs) on a fully battened mainsail? If so, what are the advantages?
Ball slides on fully battened mainsail
- Thread starter dgadee
- Start date
sailorman
Well-Known Member
the sail will hoist easier
the sail will stack with the head higher x the number of cars added.
I have the Friedricksen system 4 cars with intermediate slugs
dom
Well-Known Member
I'd say well worth it. A fully battened main behaves differently to a partially battened one when de-powered. If you use plastic intermediate slugs they will have a tendency to keep catching the batten cars as they slide down the track. In any event, plastic slugs and roller cars are often not compatible on the same track.
Sans Bateau
Well-Known Member
I have RCB batten cars at every point of the luff. To drop the sail we coil the mail halyard in the cockpit, load the tension on the winch, release the clutch, turn head to wind, spin the halyard off the winch and the sail drops in seconds, straight into the stack pack. Easy!
seumask
Well-Known Member
Definitely get cars for the ends of the battens, we made the mistake on our recent Fully Battened main ( westerly Fulmar)of not specking them (another £200) and unless you are head to wind it was almost impossible to haul down the mainsail. I have now replaced the slugs with the old Rutgerson Batten cars off the old mainsail and all is back to normal, i.e. the main will fall down if head to wind and you can haul it down with relative ease if you are not head to wind. IMHO without the cars the battens push the slugs to one side and hence massively increase the friction, and I had an entreating time mid channel in a F5-6 trying to get the sail down enough to put in another reef.
snowleopard
Well-Known Member
As well as taking up more space on the track when lowered, you also need to be sure that the reef cringles will reach down to the gooseneck horns when there is a taller stack of cars at the bottom of the track. You might find you can't get the deepest reef on.
dom
Well-Known Member
Good Point, I struggle to get the mainsail's 2nd & 3rd reefing snap-shackles directly onto the gooseneck attachment, and use a short Dynema loop instead.
DaveS
Well-Known Member
Another argument for bringing all lines back to the cockpit rather than using the horns?
sailorman
Well-Known Member
how does that work then with the tack higher than the clew
DaveS
Well-Known Member
One line for the tack and one for the clew means that each can be pulled down to just where wanted. A mark on the tack line helps to avoid pulling it down too far when it's hidden by the stack pack.
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
I'm watching this thread with interest as we have just ordered a new fully battened mainsail from Peter Sanders for our boat. Our old one had slides in the mast but Peter has persuaded us to go for an Antal track on the mast with sliders without ball bearings. He promises me that it will work even better than our old system but I won't know for sure until next spring. The word is that Peter Sanders knows what he is talking about so I have high hopes.
dgadee
Well-Known Member
He suggested I go with the intermediate ball slides on the one I have just ordered from him. Following forum advice am doing that.
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
That's interesting! I'll ask him when I speak to him next.
Angele
Well-Known Member
Peter Sanders supplied my current set up in 2005. Fully battened with ball bearing cars at all points (Frederiksen, I believe). Can't fault it. Maybe the Antal track is new and didn't exist back then.
MoodySabre
Well-Known Member
Wouldn't it depend on the size of the boat/sail? I have a Crusader FB main and for that they use Sailman 3000 slugs (beefier than normal but not much taller). With a spray of Sailcote at the beginning of the season the sail goes up and down easily. It also stacks as normal. I've been on boats where the skipper has to climb up to reach the head of the dropped sail because the stack is so tall.
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
I am anticipating that will be Peters answer. The system he has suggested for us (and I have asked for 'sail round the world' spec sails and track system) is the Antal one which from memory is the same one he supplies and fits to the Joint Services Challenge 67 Yachts. He said the ball bearings can be a pain and get stuck but he has good experience of the Teflon slides on the Antal Track.
dom
Well-Known Member
Teflon is such an amazing material - even NASA now use it to slide heavy parts where complex roller systems were once required! Also your sailmaker is right, roller-cars do need regular maintenance and lubing. Once the Teflon coating is durable - I suppose there's no reason why the whole market won't go the non-roller way soon. An easy fully battened main drop will be aided by loosening the outhaul and backstay a bit first, but I'm sure you know that already.
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Angele
Well-Known Member
Just got to the end of my ninth season with my batton roller-car set up. During that time I have had to replace one car - my fault, it partially came out of the mast track and I didn't realise as I hoisted, so I bent one of the feet. Apart from that, never once had a jam and the only maintenance I do is to give them a squirt of silicone spray at the start of every season.
TiggerToo
Well-Known Member
Tigger has these (I think) and they are really "sweet"... very easy to hoist and a doddle to drop.
dom
Well-Known Member
Actually what I meant by "maintenance" was just polishing the track and spraying the cars with silicone!
