Conference unifix::sailing

    Something which I have used around racing dinghys with great success
    is a spray lubricant which has teflon in it. The brand name is not
    important. It drys to whitish film which seems to stay in place
    and most important, it is not messy, greasy etc.  You can buy this
    type of lubricant at almost any hardware or automotive store - stay 
    away from marine stores for the same thing - just adds $$$.
    
    Hope this helps
    
    Rick

    What about Lithium grease? Is this a possible application?
    
    Gregg

re .0: 

Do you have an external track or an internal groove with plastic sail 
slugs? If the former, polishing the track with very fine wet/dry 
sandpaper (400 or 600 grit) to remove all the burrs and roughness helps. 
Any lubricant that leaves a dry, non-sticky film will work well. Grease 
(re .2:) is too thick and sticky. The track and slides will have to be 
relubricated every month or so. Our main (37' luff with an external 
track) will fall almost all the way down under its own weight.

    Re: .3
    
    Alan;
    
    Yup it's an internal track. I have cleaned the track and the slugs
    which does improve the movement somewhat, but I keep hoping that I can
    find a way so that when I release the halyard the mainsail falls
    gracefully rather than our having to pull it down off the mast. 
    
    For reference the track is a rectangular cross section extrusion that
    is part of the mast. The slugs likewise are rectangular (as opposed to
    the system where the slugs are cylindrical and the track is round in
    cross section.) 
    
    The reason I asked the original question is that I too wondered about
    what happened if I greased up the mast, and the grease has time to age
    and catch the ambient dirt. 
    
    /jim

    
    I had this problem on a previous boat.  Getting the sail down required
    a modest effort but raising it took some heavy duty winching.  At
    the end of the season we could no longer raise the sail to upper
    black band.  If I had a good memory I would have done something
    about it over the winter when the mast was out of the boat but it
    went back in the next spring with the problem unsolved.
    
    Because the areas that contact the sail are inside the mast facing
    away from the entrance of the slot, spraying in lubricant was only
    partially effective.  The solution was to jam a wad of steel wool
    into the entrance of the slot near the gooseneck and work that up
    the mast with a screwdriver and needle nose pliers.  That was followed
    by whittling a piece of beeswax to fit the slot with a groove in
    it to hold a small loop of line.  The loop of line allowed the beeswax
    to be pulled up the groove to lubricate the side of the slot contacting
    the slides.  This sort of worked.  I only dropped the beeswax a
    few times.  It would always jam itself about 10' below the point
    I was at.
    
    The sail went up much better after this treatment.  But I'd recommend
    doing the maintenance in the off season.  Doing this with the mast
    in requires a comfortable bosun's chair which I did not have at
    the time.  **VERY** painful.
    
    - gene

    To report back on what's happened so far, I ended up using a spray
    product called Super Lube - which looks like a WD-40 clone that leaves
    a Teflon residue. I chose the spray over the grease since having an
    internal track, I felt I could get the spray into the corners of the
    track better than I could load it with grease. 
    
    I also cleaned and finely sanded the sail slugs smooth again, but I
    could not follow the advice about sanding/deburring the track, since my
    stick was already up. 
    
    So far the sail drops nicely. I will report back near the end of
    the season to tell how the lubricant holds up.
    
    /jim

  re: .6
    
    Jim, where did you get the Super Lube ??
    
    JC
    

    John;
    
    I got it out of the chandlery at Great Bay Marine, Newington, NH. They
    also sell it in the West Marine catelogue. From the looks of how they
    are marketing it, it should be available in some of your local hardware
    chains.
    
    What's really interesting is that it dries clear/translucent and
    it gives the sail track a waxy feel. Usually most teflon loaded
    greases are lithium based, and are white.
    
    /jim
    

    I am pretty sure,on a past practical sailor evaluation on lubricants
    WD40 was found superior to all others in the survey including
    super-lube.Since then I use the WD40 faithfully.Gee,don't I sound
    like the famous noter?

    
    My mast (on a 25' MacGregor) has the integral track, and the main has a
    rope which you insert into the track at a widened spot near the bottom
    of the mast.  This system may be better for racing, but it's a real
    pain in most other ways because putting it up or taking it down is a
    slow difficult process.
    
    I'd like to add some of the fittings to the sail that would fit into
    the track but leave the rope outside.
    
    Is that possible?  Reasonable?
    
    What kinds of such fittings are there and which might work best --
    metal?  plastic?
    
    I haven't checked Goldberg's or Boat U.S. catalogs yet, or the local
    (Maine, N.H.) boat supply stores.  I'll let you know what I find in all
    those places when I get to 'em.
    
    Thanks,
    Dick

>    My mast (on a 25' MacGregor) has the integral track, and the main has a
>    rope which you insert into the track at a widened spot near the bottom
>    of the mast.  This system may be better for racing, but it's a real
>    pain in most other ways because putting it up or taking it down is a
>    slow difficult process.
 
   Before spending your money on new hardware, have you tried optimizing the
original setup?

   1. take your sail and rub a candle against the sail where it goes into the
      slot on both sides. This will make it go up a lot faster. I end up doing
      this a least twice a year and sometimes more if it starts sticking.

   2. do you  keep the slot clean.  Salt and other crud will really cause
      havoc from friction. Before masting for the year, spray the track
      with a bit of Superlube. Really helps out. a bit of lube on the sheave
      never hurt either. 

   3. Check you batten tension. If you have too much tension, it will cause
      the sail inside the slot to rub excessively causing friction. At a mooring
      if when you put you sail up check if the battens are popping in different
      directions. If so, pull the boom in one direction or the other until 
      all the battens are on the same side (i.e. mini backwind practice eh?).

   4. What type of Haylard are you using? Is is full nylon affair? If so, even
      a bit of friction will cause it to stretch causing all kinds of games.
      a low stretch line will get rid of a lot of this, but costs are high
	(50-75 bucks depending on mast height).

   5. How old are your sails. After a while old sails (or inproperly built new
      ones) will colapse their rope from the constant tension. I had to have
      a new line put into my brand new mylar sails this fall because the type
      of rope used by the manufacturer. What happens is that the crushed rope
      lets the sail jam near the top (and in worse cases, at the bottom). A
      new line will correct it. 

   6. If you have only a flared opening for inserting your sail, you may wish
      to get a sail trac. It is a small piece of Stainless Steel that attaches
      apprx 1 inch below the opening. It is a U shape and has flanges on it to
      attach to the mast groove. It helps straighten out the sail before it
      actually gets into to track. They really work and cost about $8. 

  Try these first. May save you some money. By the way, it it only trouble
  going up, or do you have trouble taking it down (i.e. can you let go of the
  halyard and the main drops into your waiting arms without any effort?). 

	john 
	(29 foot 2 piece mast with battens and hoisted without winches!)

    If you prefer to keep the sail on the mast when you're not using the
    boat, take the sail to a sailmaker to have slides put in.  This
    consists of putting grommets in along the luff just behind the boltrope
    every few feet.  Slides are attached trough these with small shackles
    or sewn webbing.  The slides are inserted into the mast slot at the cut
    section and the sail hoisted normally.  To keep the slides in the slot
    a stopper can be inserted just above the cutaway.  The stopper is just
    a slug in the slot with a threaded shaft protruding which has a knurled
    knob on it.  The knob is tightened to keep the slug and all the slides
    above it in the slot when the sail is dropped.  
    
    If the point of insertion is a cutaway section of the mast and not a
    flare, a peice of aluminum screwed over the cutout will also retain the
    slides.
    
    I like the metal slides that have a teflon coating over the slug.  They
    work smoothly and look stronger than the all plastic ones although I've
    never tested to verify that.
    
    If you prefer to take the sail off the rig after each outing, the
    slides aren''t worth it.  Get a bolt rope pre-feeder which mounts just
    below the cutaway on the mast.  This consists of a fitting with two
    prongs with rotating balls on the ends.  They force the boltrope to
    feed straight into the slot when the main is being raised.  It is
    necessary to lubricate both the boltrope itself as well as the slot on
    the mast.  Spray lubricant or beeswax works for both.
    
    Haarken has adapted their traveler cars for use as sail slides.  I
    haven't seen this in real life but it looks like the special Haarken
    track has to be mounted on the mast as well as adding a dozen or so
    cars to the sail.  Given what one of their cars costs, it wouldn't
    surpise me if a whole new suit of sails could be had for the price of
    the retrofit.  
    
    - gene

    
    Thanks for the ideas -- I'll use several or maybe even all of 'em.
    
    I'll have to price the options before I decide what/when.  What with
    the price of registering trailer, boat, radio, and an extra $35 to
    Uncle this year, plus some other repairs, maybe I'll stick with fixing
    up the existing system this year.
    
    At the very least, I'll look for a gizmo to help guide the rope into
    the track.  That's the worst problem right now -- if you don't guide it
    carefully the rope jams where the flare ends and you have to pull the
    sail back down a little to free it.  Also, it doesn't like to go all
    the way up without considerable persuading, but that may be because I
    need to ease the outhaul first.
    
    Also, it requires some pulling to come back down.  Sounds like cleaning
    and lubricating the track will definitely help in both the up and down
    directions.
    
    Eventually, though, I'd like to be able to raise and lower the sail
    from the cockpit, so that nobody has to go sit up there by the mast and
    do it.  Seems safer that way.  The only way that could work is if the
    sail has slides that sit in the track all the time, up or down.  That's
    why I was interested in doing it that way.  I'll see what's out there
    for hardware.  If it's not too expensive, maybe I'll give it a try. 
    Even if it loses a little top speed, I'm not concerned with racing or
    anything.  There's enough to do up there in Casco Bay just to avoid the
    rocks, the commercial shipping, and the yahoos, all of which seem bent
    on making contact.
    
    I'm still learning how this boat works -- just got it last year and had
    it out only a couple of times before the centerboard cable broke,
    ripping a chunk out of the centerboard trunk and temporarily grounding
    us in the channel to the slip area, so that was all the sailing for
    last year.
    
    Thanks,
    Dick