plastic sail slides breaking?

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RJJ

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Hi, we have a fully-battened main on our 44 foot AWB. The batten cars are fine, but the intermediate plastic slides keep breaking. Feels like every time we sail in 20 knots plus, they start popping.

Similar to these

Nylon Internal Flat Slide 3/4"

They cost pennies, but the sewing and reloading of the mainsail stack is a real PITA. Any tips would be appreciated on how to get these to last a bit longer!

We recently had a rather expensive sail service at which the sailmaker restitched all the slides and gave me a lecture about the critical importance of vertical alignment; well, since then four of the buggers have snapped. Thanks.
 
Pita! I must have got through dozens of those on hard workedcommercial yachts. Will any of the black material ones on that Web site fit? I found them much better. Or try doubling up, that works but not a long term solution.

Bainbridge, I think for the black ones.
 
capnsensible said:
I didn't use webbing and stitching, too slow and fiddly. Used the plastic shackles on that same website.
Click to expand...
Thanks - but that'll require a grommet, right? the previous mainsail had a grommet which certainly made for convenience even using webbing etc.

Grrr....

I'll try the black ones, they should be stronger.
 
RJJ said:
Hi, we have a fully-battened main on our 44 foot AWB. The batten cars are fine, but the intermediate plastic slides keep breaking. Feels like every time we sail in 20 knots plus, they start popping.

Similar to these

Nylon Internal Flat Slide 3/4"

They cost pennies, but the sewing and reloading of the mainsail stack is a real PITA. Any tips would be appreciated on how to get these to last a bit longer!

We recently had a rather expensive sail service at which the sailmaker restitched all the slides and gave me a lecture about the critical importance of vertical alignment; well, since then four of the buggers have snapped. Thanks.
Click to expand...
If you are passing through Le Marin, Martinique, the chandler's on the waterfront by the marina with the fuel dock has Selden intermediate cars.
We don't have any plastic sliders on our fully battened mainsail. You might find the extra stored sail hieght a problem for the stackpack but it might solve a problem. Lots less friction as well.
 
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capnsensible said:
I didn't use webbing and stitching, too slow and fiddly. Used the plastic shackles on that same website.
Click to expand...


We suffered the same problem. Changed all the track slides but used small S/S shackles to join to the sail.

As recommended to Alec Rose in NZ for lively lady during his circumnavigation.

Eight years on still fine. The plastic seems to suffer UV damage. The small S/S shackles are not affected. ?
 
rotrax said:
We suffered the same problem. Changed all the track slides but used small S/S shackles to join to the sail.

As recommended to Alec Rose in NZ for lively lady during his circumnavigation.

Eight years on still fine. The plastic seems to suffer UV damage. The small S/S shackles are not affected. ?
Click to expand...
We did that in the past. The only problem was the shackles wore the sail. On our new sail we have fixed all the cars on with webbing to reduce chafe
 
I feel like I've been sewing sliders on to the luff of my dinghy mainsail continuously since Christmas...

51840009492_347aea6406_z.jpg


I had bought the sliders to convert the boltrope mainsail of an Achilles 24, into one which dropped easily into the stackpack.

I tried sewing them on with a simple webbing loop, but the slugs were apt to jam during hoist and drop, I assume because they weren't held horizontally in the track. Doubling the webbing doubles the sewing time, but keeps the slug fairly rigid outside the luff.

Trying one of the sliders in the dinghy's track, I was concerned by how far out they protrude. I couldn't help thinking it won't take a lot of leverage to snap one...but until I read this thread, I was hoping that's just natural pessimism.

I didn't break any sliders yet but I never tested them in more than 18 knots. I just found on the Allen website that they're rated to withstand 50kg...but I'm guessing that's 50kg pulling back from the track, not bending hard sideways.
 
rotrax said:
The metal cringles stop wear on the sails I have used them on.

Perhaps your sails did not have metal cringles. The shackle pin, of course, went through the slide.
Click to expand...
We had metal cringles but when the sail was reefed those metal bits chafe on the sail in it's reefed position. The wear only occured in the folds of the reefed part, so the bottom third of the sail.
 
Clear now.

We used S/S shackles on our Island Packet 350 which was OK up to 20KTS true without reefing-full main and staysail was OK. Heavy weather was staysail and engine.

Our Steel Hartley in Wellington has a roller boom, so different again.

Alec Rose had no problems, he put plenty of reefs in. Perhaps Lively Lady had a roller boom - Suhali did.
 
On my fully battened mainsail from Kemp, they do not rigidly fix the intermediate sliders but use a short loop of shock cord cord with a ball. The only thing they added was a short piece of plastic tubing that slides over the loop to act as a fastner to stop it coming undone. Recently I found they actually used 6" camping ties and cost about a £5 for 10. Provided sufficient halyard tension is applied, the luff of the sail between the full lenth battens does not sag aft. It does seem to give a very good set to my mainsail. The shock cord camping ties need changing about every 5 years, but very easy to do without having to remove the mainsail.

This photo shows some of the loops, sorry but I cannot find a better photo of the loops.

MLDO2899 cropped.jpg
 
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