How good is tides marine sailtrack system

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Leisure 27

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My mainsail is dificult to lower. I would like to fit the harken bat car system but think it could be too costly. I am thinking of fitting tides marine sailtrack system. Any advice please My boat is a leisure 27
 
jetgo888 said:
My mainsail is dificult to lower. I would like to fit the harken bat car system but think it could be too costly. I am thinking of fitting tides marine sailtrack system. Any advice please My boat is a leisure 27
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The tidesmarine track is superb and will suit a boat of your size at a cost of (based on my 30 footer which had a tidesmarine track fitted in 2013) under a grand.

If we are head to wind all I have to do to drop the sail is open the clutch (in the cockpit, cup of coffee in other hand lol) and the next thing it's all in the stack pack. No need to touch anything else at all.

The track (and lazyjacks) allows us to drop the mainsail downwind in anything up to about a F5 (havent tried higher), usually just go on deck to bundle the head of it into the stackpack if doing that.

It allows us to reef on any point of sail (alongside a lot of other high spec gear to be fair) by just dropping the halyard to a mark and winching the pennant in.

Basically I regard it as the most important upgrade we've made to the boat and wouldn't be without it (or a comparable system) on any boat.

So yes (if the above were not glowing enough) I am a fan and can recommend it :)

Our main is a fully battened laminate. I suspect you will need a fully battened main to either use, or make the most of, the track. Other than that I can't think of any provisos. It installs straight into the mast slot and is very quick to fit (although ours was fitted by our rigger).

Feel free to PM if you want any more info.
 
Fitted to my UFO 31 in 2015. I have an old Proctor mast and getting the Main down was always a trip to the mast to heave on it.
I now find even without a fully battened main, when head to wind, the sail rattles all the way down into the lazy jacks no problem. Didn't do that before so very happy with it.
 
My previous boat was a Jaguar 27 and the mainsail was also difficult to lower. I talked to my local sailmaker, Parker & Kay at Suffolk Yacht Harbour, and he fitted different mast slides - these were dark grey in colour, not the original white. These transformed the sail lowering, as soon as it was head to wind and the halyard released the sail just fell down! No idea who the maker is but problem fixed for about £100. Much cheaper solution that fitting cars etc.
 
PetiteFleur said:
My previous boat was a Jaguar 27 and the mainsail was also difficult to lower. I talked to my local sailmaker, Parker & Kay at Suffolk Yacht Harbour, and he fitted different mast slides - these were dark grey in colour, not the original white. These transformed the sail lowering, as soon as it was head to wind and the halyard released the sail just fell down! No idea who the maker is but problem fixed for about £100. Much cheaper solution that fitting cars etc.
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Even cheaper is to fit a "retrieval line"... Tie off to top slide, interleave between alternate slides, lead aft and find a jammer. Payout halyard, pull retrieval line, main comes down, is held down and all for less than a tenner
 
Sorry, I paid £2 for the line about the same for a small bullet block, and used a windsurfer "puller" clam cleat. The small bullet attached to the strut under the gooseneck, the line "shares" the organiser for the kicker - which gets little exercise, and back to the clam. Total cost £10
 
Thank you very much Bitbaltic and IvorClarke. Sounds perfect. Would like a fully battened but was hoping to keep my standard battened for now. Other items needed. Will have fitted next April or can I have fitted mast up. What other high spec gear would I need for reefing downwind. I have 2 line reefing at present. Is single line much better. Thanks also for other replies. Please keep them coming in jetgo888 Sea Walker Plymouth UK
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jetgo888 said:
Thank you very much Bitbaltic and IvorClarke. Sounds perfect. Would like a fully battened but was hoping to keep my standard battened for now. Other items needed. Will have fitted next April or can I have fitted mast up. What other high spec gear would I need for reefing downwind. I have 2 line reefing at present. Is single line much better. Thanks also for other replies. Please keep them coming in jetgo888 Sea Walker Plymouth UK
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The track is fitted with the mast up. It just pushes into the existing slot. I think there is a video somewhere online.

Re. reefing downwind, the main effect is the low friction from the track and the weight of our FB sail, because this allows the sail to drop. The halyard is undersized dyneema (10mm) which also helps keep down any friction resisting the drop. Our 1st and 2nd reefs are also undersized dyneema (6mm) arranged in a conventional single line without any blocks or tackle in the boom. Sheaves where needed (eg on the sail luff) are ballraced Harken. We also have lazyjacks.

To reef we release the halyard to the appropriate reef point which is marked by a whipping the same colour as the reefing pennant (red for 1st, blue for 2nd, black for 3rd) (the point has been chosen by time experimenting on a light airs day in harbour). The sail drops under its own weight and collapses against the leeward lazy jacks which stop the head of it it blowing out to leeward and powering up. We then winch in the reef pennant to a similarly marked point. All the lines are led back to clutches in the cockpit and for both the reef line and halyard, maximum tension is when the whipping marker is cockpit-side of the clutch, so that's when the reef is hard on. It allows some objective adjustment to soften the luff etc as you know where the "maximum" point of tension is.

Reef 3 is a single leech pennant with a snap shackle at the luff, everything works in the same way except you have to go forward to snap it on. The shackle is held to the goosneck with a dyneema strop and snaps to the ring of the spectacles in the luff (all the reefs have spectacles through the cringle).

The winches are Harken 35.2 (all round) which is oversize for a 30ft boat but is the smallest twin speed ST model Harken make. They were fitted because my wife struggles with any single speed winch. You would probably not need to go as far as that sort of an upgrade but ST winches on the coachroof will be useful.

All of this works as well downwind as upwind, as I say up to around a F5 as far as I have tried. I have not tried it on a dead run but on a broad reach it works no problem.

ETA: we also have a selden gas kicker which was fitted to eliminate any need to mess around with the topping lift when reefing, the original plan was that the kicker would be released before reefing and support the weight of the boom during the process, however in practice this is unnecessary as it is all so quick we just keep on sailing. Its a nice to have but probably not essential.
 
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A lot of good info' on this thread. I too would like my sail to drop fully into the stack pack when the halyard is released, but the last 8ft or so of the 37ft luff stubornly refuses to drop. I've considered a Tides Marine track but I think the issue is more the stiffness of the material in the luff which resists folding down tightly and there"s very little weight in the last small triangle of sail to force it. I've tried Gladys's idea of a downhaul but had problems with tangling of the 5mm line I used. Still looking for a solution as balancing on the coachroof isn't getting any easier with the passing years.
 
Thanks very much Bitbaltic Will have Sailtrack fitted and may fit your other ideas i.e. down sizing lines etc. if needed. Thanks again jetgo888 Sea Walker
 
jetgo888 said:
My mainsail is dificult to lower. I would like to fit the harken bat car system but think it could be too costly. I am thinking of fitting tides marine sailtrack system. Any advice please My boat is a leisure 27
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You really soul don't need a special low friction track/cars on a boat at your size, there must me friction somewhere in the system, most likely worn sliders. Much cheaper to replace them (as others have suggested I think) than go for a tides marine track.

That said I have only been told very good things about the tides marine track but it really is not needed on anything below 33-36' boats IMO and that is to help reduce friction when raising, not lowering (where gravity pretty much does all the work!).
 
Georgio said:
You really soul don't need a special low friction track/cars on a boat at your size, there must me friction somewhere in the system, most likely worn sliders. Much cheaper to replace them (as others have suggested I think) than go for a tides marine track.

That said I have only been told very good things about the tides marine track but it really is not needed on anything below 33-36' boats IMO and that is to help reduce friction when raising, not lowering (where gravity pretty much does all the work!).
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Suggest you actually try sailing a boat with a tidesmarine before making recommendations about whether it will improve performance on small boats. No way could we have achieved the reefing performance of our boat with just a new set of sliders even though the rest of the reefing system is (as much as can be) frictionless.
 
I was on a boat the other day, the main would drop under its own weight until just a metre or so of the head were up the track.
I was impressed, first boat I've been on in a long while where the lazyjacks worked faultlessly with zero faff.
This boat is 37ft and has one full length batten, with plain old Allen plastic slides (the headboard ones might be PTFE coated alloy?).

We did ease the outhaul and apply topping lift to unload the slides.
I suspect there may be some detail about how the slides are lashed or taped on, what's optimum for them not jamming in the track?
A year of Pompey grime will gum up anything though!
 
jetgo888 said:
My mainsail is dificult to lower. I would like to fit the harken bat car system but think it could be too costly. I am thinking of fitting tides marine sailtrack system. Any advice please My boat is a leisure 27
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Delighted with mine, worth every penny. Make sure you get the right sail sliders to go with it. Mine are stainless and fitted by the sailmaker as I had it supplied with a new fully battened main by Sanders Sails.

Yoda
 
yoda said:
Delighted with mine, worth every penny. Make sure you get the right sail sliders to go with it. Mine are stainless and fitted by the sailmaker as I had it supplied with a new fully battened main by Sanders Sails.

Yoda
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Same here, the sail was new by Sanders and the track was fitted by my local rigger who worked in concert with Sanders. In fact the whole boat's rigging and sails were overhauled as part of a project between them. Shows what can be achieved when you get good professionals working together. Incidentally I think Peter Sanders has been aware of the value of the tidesmarine for a long time and a lot of boats with the system will tend to have his sails :)
 
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