SV Ramble On | Installing a Strong Track
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ธ.ค. 2018
- We chose to go with a Tides Marine Strong Track for our mainsail. The old mainsail was very hard to raise because the plastic slides were worn out. The Tides system has an Ultra High Molecular Weight (UHMW) track and 316 stainless slides that are hand-polished to a smooth, low-friction finish. The system is designed to carry the increased loads of full-batten mainsails, which our new one is. The installation was pretty straightforward and Rich was able to do it himself.
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Installing our 3rd Tides Marine Sailtrack today. After about 10 years in the really hot tropical sun year round, you need to start keeping an eye on it for UV degradation like anything plastic. So since are doing 2 southern capes in the next year, we want to make sure everything is in tip top shape...so replacing our sail track a little earlier than we normally would. It seems to be 12 years is most prudent if in the hot sun year round. Probably a lot longer if not. Better safe than sorry :) We really love this sail track...so will be replacing it every 10-12 years for life I suspect! Thanks for making this video. -Rebecca on SV Brick House
Hey Patrick, thanks for watching us. I watch your videos, and often refer back to them time and again. When we got the Tides System I was worried about that t-slot in the UWHM Plastic and figured that would be a prime point of failure. Glad to hear you got 10 years out of each one before changing. I like simple, and Tides has the least amount of moving parts. Some people freak out about UV lifespan for the track; I figure it's the price you pay for convenience of sail handling.
Precisely our thoughts. For the money and the simplicity, it’s so easy to just replace it every 10-12 years depending on where you are going, what suns you are in etc. If doing serious full time sailing, I think 10 years is where the note in your maintenance log for replacement should go.
Excellent explanation and thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much for watching. Glad you enjoyed it.
Nicely done video.
Thank you Ron and thanks for watching.
So you didn’t have to go up the mast at all? We have to take our old Tide track down and put on our new one, and we can’t remember if we have to up the mast to do anything. Hope you love yours as much as we love ours! Rebecca on SV Brick House
Nice work Rich, are the track kits expensive?
Thank you Dan, and thanks for watching. The kit runs about $29/foot and our mast is approximately 45 feet from the mast gate to the headboard stop. We purchased the sail track system through our sail maker along with a new mainsail and two head sails and it included all the appropriate track slides and batten receptacles for our specific mainsail design and batten layout. The Tides Marine website has really good instructions for measuring and installation, but there's also several other videos on TH-cam that were very helpful before I cut to length and installed our own sail track.
Hi Rich, we have really enjoyed your videos. Thanks for all the work you put into them. I was wondering what size wire did you use for the inverter video. I have looked everywhere and cannot find the specs. We will be installing our Multiplex in about 3 weeks. Thanks John
Thanks John. Glad you're enjoying the vids and thanks for watching. I hope this answer isn't too long winded, but for the inverter install I went with Ancor marine grade 2/0 AWG wire for all the battery cables and the feeds to & from the inverter/charger. In our particular install the runs were all very short (less than 5 feet for the longest return wire) because the battery bank was almost directly underneath the inverter/charger, and I sized the cables for LESS THAN 3% voltage drop. This location is suitable in our particular application because of our LiFePo battery bank, but it's not recommended to mount the charger directly above a typical Lead Acid battery bank due to the corrosive affects of Hydrogen off-gassing onto all the electronics inside the Victron. However, it is at least (if not MORE) important to properly terminate the wires with good quality marine grade lugs and a good solid crimp. Rather than go into all the details, I'll link you to the page where I learned how to do all this stuff: marinehowto.com/making-your-own-battery-cables/ No point in spending good money on marine grade cable only to utilize inferior lugs and crimp methods. I think I spent about $160 on the "bolt-cutter" style crimper, and I've definitely put it to good use throughout the complete re-wire of our boat. The terminal lugs I used are solid copper tinned marine grade FTZ Power Lugs, and they run a couple buck each. I also follow up with adhesive lined heat-shrink tubing over all the major crimps. Money well spent, and I'm happy to say we sleep comfortably every night as full time live-aboards. Maybe in the future we'll do a specific video on wire terminations and give a little explanation on why exactly this is so important. Thanks again, and good luck on your new inverter installation.
Thanks for getting back to me. I was planning on going with 2/0. It really help getting your input. Thanks again. John@@svrambleon
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Great video, one question: how did you enlarge the mast gate so the new track can be installed in the mast groove?
Hi Gabor - Yeah, we don't discuss it a lot in this video, but we do briefly talk about it at the beginning of the New Lower Shrouds video th-cam.com/video/GXWLG-PSKYc/w-d-xo.html. Check it out and if you have a specific question shoot us another comment or you can email Rich at rich@svrambleon.com
Thanks!
How are you liking your Strong track with full batten sail? How many sf is the main? Thanks
Thanks for watching La Sirena, we love the new Strong Track system. Our main hoists so much easier, and it drops like a rock into our Mack Pack bag with lazy jacks. We do keep a careful eye on the battens when sheeted way out and running downwind so they don't chafe against the aft lower shrouds.
can you use the slides in an existing track? My track is aluminium and already installed. My slides look like they will slip in to the existing track?
I don’t think so. The track is what makes the slides move smoothly. I think you can add the Strong Track to your existing track though. Go to the Tides Marine website they have options for retrofitting.
Thanks for the info. I was hoping to get rid of the plastic. I priced the track and in AUD with delivery etc was ridiculously expensive and really then I am just back to plastic. Think I will selll my tides slides that I bought second hand and invest in roller slides that work on metal. thanks for the response though.
If you already have the Tides slides maybe give them a try up the metal track. Maybe it’ll work fine. If not, you can always switch.
Any links for the tracks?
Here you go Hans: www.tidesmarine.com/sailtrack/sailtrack.php
Also, there are several more videos about the system on TH-cam if you search "Tides Strong Track".
How is it working???
We love it. It works great. The mainsail falls like a ton of bricks.