Batt-car systems for the main

[Tropic1]

I'm thinking of getting a batt-car system for my main and was wondering what systems seem to be most durable and easy to maintain.

[zxcatamaran]

Most of the people I know which have a car system for the mainsail use Harken and seem to like it.

[delmarrey]

I went with the Tidesmarine system and luv it.

It took less then an hour to install the track form the deckhouse and the slides just screw right onto the outside of the sail. If you have a boltrope on the sail, that would have to be changed.

I have 4 full battens and the slide flanges have a slot where the battens slip right under.

http://www.tidesmarine.com/sail-track.html

[defjef]

Shiva's main is a Hood Vektron and uses a Shaefer batt car. No problem.

You can't miss what you never had.

jef
sv shiva

[Paul L]

I used the Tidesmarine Sailtrack system also. Low friction, nice system. Made handling the main much easier.

Paul L

[Tropic1]

Thanks for the ideas. I've never heard of the Tides Marine system before but looks interesting.

Has anyone had experience with the Antal system?

I'm a little concerned about the ballbearing systems and have read where the Harken system has lost the balls out of the cars ocasionally and would have to "Load" new balls, although having had several boats with Harken travelers where they always seemed to stay in place I'm not sure what would cause that.

I have also read about carbon slugs to replace the plastic ones which are suppose to reduce the friction of raising and lowering the sail, has anyone used these and if you have how do they work and do they create black dust?

[delmarrey]

The problem I have always found with slugs is that they are never long enough to slide properly so they bind in the slot. And if they were long enough, then the sail would stack too high. The manufactures of the masts SHOULD provide a good slide system to start with, rather then leaving it to the aftermarket people.

But this is why I went with the Tides sysytem. At a boat show I tried my best to get it to bind without success, SOLD! Where as, the bearing types, if I twist them or kink them just right they would bind or at least was hard to move.

And the Tides had a shorter stack height. The install was so EZ vs the tracks for the bearing types. I didn't even have to leave the deck. I did have to pull the mount for the gooseneck, but no big deal.

Another positive but unlikely to happen, if you were to hit the Tides track with something it would bounce off. But the solid tracks of the bearing type would get damaged and the car may not like that much.

Another thought would be a broken mast at sea, which would you want.

[defjef]

Good point on the stack height. You can have fewer slides, but longer ones or have longer one for the batt cars. Out stack height is about as high as I can reach, with a few longer slugs. It's a 440SF main and so it weighs a fair amount. I can usually get it all the way up if there is a big of wind.

jef
sv shiva

[Spirit28]

The mast on my 37' boat has a flat section across the back end - sort of like the internal round drawing on the Tides marine web page.

The cruising main has 4 full length battens - at the luff end of each batten there is a slug arrangement that also has four wheels that ride on the flat surface of the mast taking the compression loads induced by the battens. In between each batten there are normal slugs.

Seems a good compromise price wise - works really well.

[delmarrey]

I remember back in the good ole daze on my Cal 2-27. It had the external SS track slides. It worked really well but when the sail went luff them SS sliders would rattle like H... I guess now they use plastic sliders on the SS tracks.

[Tropic1]

I'm suppressed that there haven't been a wider variety of systems mentioned. I guess most people don't use or need them. This is the first boat I've had which hasn't used a bolt rope. I've had small (26') to medium (34') sized MORC & IOR boats and they were relatively small mainsails. This new boat has a large (at lease for me) main which is very heavy. I do want to keep my stack height low so I don't need to change the cover on the stackpac. I did see the Antal system on a mast prior to being stepped and it looked pretty simple and short cars. I was hoping to have some more ideas/opinions before the Annapolis Show. Thanks to everyone responded.