Mast Rollers for Fully Battened Main?

[chrisgee]

Finding the Mainsail hoist a bit of a struggle these days. I am thinking of a) electric winch but am not totally convinced or perhaps a roller system a la Harken which I know is v expensive. There is also a system made by Antal which is apparently good but less expensive.
Any forumites out there care to give an opinion or better still some first hand experiences.
/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[jstr]

When I got a new main for my Legend Selene, Maxi Roach made me a fine fully battened main, but it had more battens than the original, and was very difficult to hoist.

After much experimentation, I settled on the Rutgerson® Full-Batten
“BATTCAR” System (goto www.contender.co.uk and download the pdf - page 32) with a mix of the cars that go onto the end of the batten, and plain cars.

Can now whip the main up and down at any time, even with some wind in the sail (alright obviously not in a blow!)

Only drawback is they are not cheap and the sail rides up the mast

I got mine through Jim at the Emsworth Yacht Harbour Chandlery

 

[Jonny_H]

We've got Frederickson carrs - very good (not cheap) but they work with the existing mast track.

On our fully battened main it will fall on its own (just uncleat the halyard and it falls down very quickly). I can hoist the main (37ft yacht) by hand not even using the winch if we're head to wind - just need the winch for the last 6 inches to tension it.

Jonny

 

[MASH]

Went to cars on my hood sail after it was made as hard to hoist. First just on the battens which helped, but then added cars throughout. Transformed the whole thing. Highly recommended, and concur with winch only for tension. I can now reef hove to or with relaxed mainsheet. Brilliant!

 

[wingdiver]

We used Harken System A on ours. See here
Fantastic. Hardly need the winch.
Oh, and I think Frederiksen are now Ronstan.

 

[davidbains]

We had the same problem with a Crusader battened mainsail this year.
Slackening off the batten tension can help, as can Sailkote dry lubricant on the sliders.
Still have to wind it up though, it's just quicker as the sliders wear!!
Will investigate some roller sliders though. The battened main surprised me by how much
more drive it delivered compared to good quality Goff biradial but not full battened main before.
And it got rid of significant weather helm since it can be set much further out when close hauled.