Putting a new main sail track on the mast wasn't really in the original plan but because I used heavy duty triplex wiring for the mast, the original wire channel covers (see green circle in schematic) were going to be a really tight fit. Additionally, the existing track was a bit banged up and knowing that the sail is hoisted from the cockpit, there would be a lot of friction in the system that could make it hard to raise or lower the sail. My previous boat (Alberg 35) had a very old external sail track and a wire halyard and the effort involved in getting that sail up and down was exhausting. Not something I want anymore and a new sail track would give me less friction and more space for the wiring since it would effectively replace the existing cover.
I spent a fair amount of time researching, and most of the low friction systems on the market are just insanely expensive and way out of my price range. A friend of mine told me to take a look at Tides Marine and after reading many, many reviews and speaking with one of their technicians for over an hour, I decided to pull the trigger.
In a nutshell, the Tides Marine track is a extruded HDPE plastic track that slides into your existing track (or over depending on track type). The first step in the process is to request a fit kit from Tides Marine. It's free and is a clever way to get exact measurements for your particular mast with a series of plastic discs to capture the proper width and depth dimensions so the track can be created. The first set of discs are for the slot width and uses the letters A-R to set the width (mine was N). The second set of discs are for the slot lip thickness and uses 1-8 to determine the thickness (mine was 8). The only other thing to measure is the track length in feet and the distance from the distance from the gooseneck to the top of the mast gate (6.65"). I gave myself a little extra wiggle room and ordered 40' of track even though the luff on this boat says 38'. I put the order in online and less that a week later a big hexagonal box showed up at the house with the track and nice stainless steel sail slugs (I counted the number of slugs on the mainsail including the headboard).
The next step was to get the gooseneck off the mast because you need the space to slide the track into place. This proved to be quite a challenge because the gooseneck was connected to the mast with stainless steel phillips head machine screws (maybe #14) and it probably had never been removed since the boat was first launched in 1986. Stainless steel and aluminum don't mix very well and they were locked together spectacularly. I tried a big screwdriver with zero luck then hit it with PB Blaster (also no luck). I spent 3 days giving it regular squirts of PB Blaster and tapping the fittings to introduce some vibrational stress and still they wouldn't budge. Next, I hit them with a torch and more PB Blaster and finally got 2 of the 8 screws to back out, but the other 6 were stuck. I considered using my impact driver that I had good luck freeing up engine bolts, but my concern was because phillips head screws can easily be stripped out and once the are, the job becomes a total nightmare.
What I did find was a manual impact driver online that you hit with a hammer and it rotates a quarter turn. I ordered it and with the help of more PB Blaster and the propane torch I was able to free up all the screws without destroying anything and once I got the gooseneck off, I was free to proceed with the rest of the job.
I waited for a reasonably warm day (65degrees F) so that the plastic track was a bit more pliable and my wife and I got to work. She held the new track like a hula-hoop and I fed it into the old track gate. Initially the track was hanging up on gate, but I took a metal file and smoothed out the edges and after that it was just a matter of sliding it up to the top of the mast and fixing the bottom (new gate) section onto the old groove with a t-nut (or something like a t-nut).
I'm excited to see how smooth this track is (I've heard good things), but the few tests I did with the new sail slugs were incredibly smooth and 'slippery'.
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