Any experience with track-car systems for mainsails?

[mastreb]

Since I'm going to be building a mast, I decided I should take a hard look at things like Lazy Jack systems, commercial boom furlers, and track car systems.

I dislike slides from my experience with my previous boat, where the mast slot was 30 years old and just a small amount of corrosion made track slides a friggin nightmare.

But I'm also very tired of how the main comes off of a bolt rope and you have manage the whole thing on the deck. Even the slightest amount of wind makes that a real hassle.

I've ruled out furling masts and commercial boom furlers, both because they require a new mainsail and because they both require mainsail compromises that reduce performance between 5% and 20%, which is substantially more than slides.

So I've landed on the Harken Battcar system as something that would be easy to install. Essentially, it's a 13mm (half-inch) wide "T" track that bolts into the existing track using slugs and has ball-bearing cars or non-rolling low friction slides. The friction is so low that you can drop the main completely simply by loosing the halyard, and they say you can raise the main or reef in any condition so long as the main is not backed against the spreaders.

Also, unlike most other solutions this looks like it would not significantly impact trailer rigging.

Anyway, if anyone has any experience with it or something like it, I'd like to hear about it.

The mac would be built with 4x 80.75" tracks and one mast gate track, and my mainsail would be built with six cars. Total would run about $1600.

http://www.harken.com/battcar/

[seahouse]

No experience here, but the only thing that concerned me when I looked at it (a few years back) was the size of the gap between the mast and the sail. Might not be significant. Nothing's perfect, and everything about it looks high- quality.

But I'll be keeping a close eye on this thread if you decide to have a go with this system.

[mastreb]

Yeah, that gap is the major concern for me as well. The reason I'm considering it anyway is that (a) I have to re-build my mast anyway and (b) all the other reefing systems cause even more performance loss than the 5% I'm estimating that gap may cause maximum.

Slugs have been measured to cause about a 2% performance loss on non-rotating masts, but I've not been able to find any data on rotating masts. The real problem with Aerodynamics is that it's mostly non-intuitive. You can't just look at something and have any kind of experiential guess about what it's going to do. Heck, a slot right behind the leading edge on a rotated mast that's inside the angle of attack may have a beneficial effect--slots in front of it are known to.

But what I do know is that the PIA of dealing with a billowing bolt-roped main coming down causes even more hassle, and requires two crew to deal with, and I want to get setup to completely single-hand.

[mastreb]

So I've had what I think is a pretty good idea:

Remove the gooseneck bracket that is riveted to the mast.

Extend the "track" portion of the Battcar system down to where the gooseneck would normally be, with the track gate below that. Replace the gooseneck bracket with one of the "head board" double-cars that are made for the slamming and tension at the head of the sail.

http://www.harken.com/productdetail.asp ... &taxid=507

Now eliminate the stock boom, and replace it with a 1.5" carbon fiber tube that replaces the boom. The retaining pin of the batt-car is replaced with a typical nylock bolt, which connects to the stock gooseneck pivot tube, and the the gooseneck pivot tube is bolted to the tack end of the carbon tube with a through-bolt.

The Tack end of the mainsail is shackled to a downhaul cleat at the base of the mast (or cam-cleat or what have you), and also to the batt-car.

The clew-end of the carbon tube boom is drilled for a hound for the mainsail and and outhaul block or cam-cleat as per the stock boom.

So the system constitutes a normal boom for my loose-footed main except that it's connected to the mast by a batt-car instead of the gooseneck bracket.

Disadvantages:

Cost.

Advantages:

I can loose the tack downhaul and raise the main to any point on the track that you want. In light air I can raise the main to the actual top of the mast, which is about 12" higher than the main goes now.

2) The main is tensioned by downhaul after the halyard is cleated off, which is much more easily accomplished with one's foot at the base of the mast or with the cabin-top winches if lines are led aft.

3) The main can now be dropped immediately to the mast gate, just as the battcar system allows now. The boom car sits directly atop the mast gate, so the lowered mainsail sits lower on deck. Furthermore, the entire lowered main and boom can also be moved up to any point on the track--well out of the way of the cabin and even out of the way of the cabin-top deck if desired. The cabin-top deck becomes useful for hanging out on. The entire boom could be raised to 11' up, and then lashed vertically pointing down to the mast, for example, as a simple way to get it and the mainsheet out of the way.

4) To remove and stow the main, Open the mast gate while keeping the halyard under some tension, and then simply roll the main up onto the carbon tube as you ease the halyard and the batt-cars come off the bottom of the track. You don't have to worry much about how the cars come off the track. Re-installing the main is somewhat more hassle because you have to manually feed the batt-cars onto the track manually. So perhaps you would only be done when trailering, hauling out for the season, or switching rigs.

4) You can switch rigs! This setup will allow me to easily build a gaff-rigged main, with the top-gaff on a batt-car using the exact same setup as the boom (except the head of the sail would be sleeved to go over a 1" tube).



The main will be build with two cheek blocks at the pinnacle, one for the typical (or throat) halyard, and one for the gaff rig's peak halyard. When flying the bermuda rig, the peak halyard is simply cleated off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaff_rig

The Peak halyard would have block at the clew end of the gaff to reverse the peak halyard tension so that the peak halyard will also outhaul and tension the mainsail head at the peak.

The throat halyard would be shackled to the gaff battcar for hauling up the mainsail. This gaff-sail would have its own boom tailored to it. Using the same batt-car gating system, it should be trivial to roll up the gaff rig and swap it for the bermuda rig depending on the winds.

I'd build the gaff-rigged main for light air (my typical problem) which would allow me to fly about 30% more mainsail than the bermuda rig. If the winds are expected to be (or turn out to be) more than I would want for the gaff rig, it's a simple swap to replace it with the bermuda rig, and with the batt-cars, the gaff rig can be dropped immediately in the event of a sudden squall. The boat will definitely round up, because the CE is farther aft with a gaff rig.

I already know from my use of Seahouse's rotating gooseneck that the mainsail rolled onto a boom is MUCH smaller and easier to handle than a flaked sail, and with these tubes weighing only 2 lbs or so, it would be simple to move them around and keep both mainsails onboard, which is a safety improvement in the event of a lost or broken main--and each sail keeps its entire system with it, so it matters not what has broken as long as its not the mast.

Because these booms are made from typical round carbon tubes, they're much cheaper than even the factory boom for the same strength.

As always, comments are appreciated, especially those that point out why it would be foolish to spend money on this.

[mastreb]

I've talked myself into this track-car system and my carbon boom for the regular mainsail. I'll leave the gaff-rig idea in the future until I've got this working well.

If my idea regarding putting the gooseneck on a batt-car for removal with the sail turns out to be a bad idea, I can just shorten the track and rivet the stock gooseneck bracket back on.

[mastreb]

In case anyone else does this, here's the Harken part numbers I'm ordering to build the mast. I'm using their 13mm size "AA" track which is the lightest size and appropriate for luffs up to 30' and boats up to 35'.

The M luff is 27' so that will require 5x 2.05m track lengths and 5x round mast groove mounting kits. The slugs feed into the sail slot and the track bolts onto that, so there's no drilling or tapping necessary.

Every system needs 1x track endstop kits and 1x headboard car assembly for the headboard.

You need 1 AA CB Intermediate Car (CB=Captive Bearing) for each full batten your sail has, and it should be mounted right at the batten luff pocket. Otherwise, you can use the much cheaper slider intermediate cars. You need one car every 2', so that's 14 cars total, minus the headboard and minus any CB cars to get the number of Intermediate cars.

1 each HAR3813 Harken System AA CB Headboard Car Assembly $347.25
8 each HAR3814 Harken System AA Slider Intermediate Car $23.41
3 each HAR3815 Harken System AA CB Intermediate Car $107.58
5 each HAR3818 Harken Mounting Kit - Round Mast Groove $84.57
1 each HAR3821 Harken Track Endstop Kit - Round Mast Groove w/ ScrewPin $70.93
5 each HAR3817 Harken Slug-Mount Track $79.77

I'm using an additional headboard car as a gooseneck, so my system total was just over $2000.

[mastreb]

Just to do a closing post on this, do not install a Harken track car system on a trailerable sailboat.

The cars have a problem where the bearings jam as they go around the top of the race inside the cars when they're being installed on the install track. This pushes the retaining wire open and allows bearings to fall out. You invariably lose bearings every time you put the cars on the track, no matter how careful you are.

Harken has not responded to any of my support emails at all, not even with an autoresponse, and I don't have time to deal with this during work hours when their support phone number is available. This is a common problem with boat support--they apparently don't realize that working on sailboats is a weekend endeavor.

Anyway, the only real solution is to go to their slide cars that don't have bearings, which is no better than slugs for a lot more money.

Matt

[RGF]

Thanks for the update, results are a shame though. Sounded like a good idea at the time. Would've made for fast ,easy raising and lowering...

[mastreb]

Yeah, I'm really bummed, being $2000 into a system that I'm going to have to downgrade. It is very easy to raise and lower the sail as promised, it's just the bearing race issue that makes this a no-go.

On a boat whose mast stays up and whose mainsail is not removed, it would be acceptable but still not "captive" as promised.

There's an additional problem with our boats: When the mast is lowered, the track sits on the mast bracket and takes some damage from bouncing around. Hasn't seemed to matter, but I can't imagine that its good. It also adds a little weight.

So slugs are the way to go if you don't want to use a bolt rope on our boats.

[Crikey]

Sound like you've thoroughly thought out the engineering side - as usual...
Keeping the baby as well, are we?
I'll continue to be stuck in bolt-rope purgatory but I'll still maintain adding lazy jacks was a huge plus for me. Worth doing!
R.

[mastreb]

Sound like you've thoroughly thought out the engineering side - as usual...
Keeping the baby as well, are we?
I'll continue to be stuck in bolt-rope purgatory but I'll still maintain adding lazy jacks was a huge plus for me. Worth doing!
R.

If you trailer and have to take the mainsail off frequently, you can't do better than a bolt rope. Some kind of rolling boom furler would be nice in that scenario, but the devil is in the details and there are details applenty.

I'm going to force Harken to send me some solid non-bearing sliders to make this track system viable. It does slide nicely with them, and they never hang up the way slugs can.

Matt

[Wayne nicol]

ok, just to be sure - the harken non bearing sliders work way better than slugs?? so the system is still a go- will the main simply slide down, as apposed to being pulled down like i currently have to do with the slugs:x
and when raising the sail- i have to stand at the mast- as every single slug hooks on the mast gate as it goes past.
( my other complaint is that the mast gate is too high- so to install the first two bottom slugs, you have to remove the boom at the goos neck- hold up the boom and sail in one hand , and try and wiggle the first two slugs into the track- then reattach the boom- and the remainder of the slugs can be inserted.... just drives me crazy)


do they have the bigger" non bearing slider" units- similar to the bearing units you proposed to use on your b oom and gaff spar??
thanks mate
wayne

[mastreb]

Hi Wayne,

The non-bearing cars are definitely better than slugs, and they actually load extremely easily on the special loading track. There would never be any reason to remove the boom, and the main will drop easily without needing to be pulled down, to the point that the main is "soft enough" to do that. My 7oz main is new and stiff, so it still needs a little help to get bagged. I've been able to raise and lower it backed against the shrouds in a 10 knot astern wind at the dock without issues. There's nothing for the slides to catch on as the gate is entirely below all the slides. So yes, that part does work well and it would be ideal for a lines-led-aft solution, although I would still put the halyard on a loop so you can pull down if necessary, or when the sail is backed against the spreaders.

I'd be happy to help you work out exactly what parts you'd need to get that done.

Using the non-bearing slides is also much cheaper. You would have to buy a headboard bearing car and either convert it to non-bearing slugs or use it as is and accept the bearing loss. The headboard car is a metal frame with two regular bearing cars connected, and you could use that frame to make a large car for a boom or gaff by replacing the bearing cars with the sliding cars, which is exactly what I did on my prototype boom.

Frankly, if I'd just had the non-bearing cars only my opinion would probably be entirely different. This would also be a good option for someone who does not want to cut the mast slot on a new extrusion.

You'd also need to figure out how not to damage the portion of the track that rides on the mast carriage when trailering, in case it comes off and strikes the stainless. Wrapping it with a towel would probably do.

matt

[Wayne nicol]

thanks fella, maybe a new roller could be turned up on a lathe, with a better designed profile, to better cup and hold the roller in position, a deeper wider trench and higher more captive side walls- might have to change/modify the current roller brackets.
cheers mate

[Highlander]

Anyone ever check out the ronston trackless car system the cars fit inside the mast slot eliminating the need for any track also cuts down on weight aloft "who should I be talking about weight aloft with 5 furlers LOL "

J