sailboat mast track

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Mast Fittings & Track

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Sailtrack Lubricants

It's no good wrasslin' with the main halyard on the hoist, or the luff on the douse. but don't call the 'marines.' get elmer to help..

The goal is a mainsail that hoists easily and drops like a rock. A main that doesn’t strike when set loose can be a menace if the weather is pushing you or maneuvering room is limited.

Most important is a good mast track, clean and smooth, with no resident spider webs or wasp cells. Silky spider cocoons cause great problems. They collect lubricant, dirt, and oxidized aluminum. Sailmakers hate such debris; they call it “mast mud.” It’s the black stuff you find on your mainsail’s luff.

If the track is external and metal, you will, of course, have used emery paper to round slightly and smooth the sharp edges. The inside corners are difficult, but worth doing; they are the most likely to cause jamming because they take more load than the outside corners. It’s hard work, but need only be done once, when the track is new, and touched up from season-to-season. It makes a world of difference.

If you have a mast groove and plastic slugs, a clean, smooth groove is even more important, because it’s tight, and a favorite haunt of the above-mentioned bugs. It’s also difficult to inspect. Running a sort of gun-cleaning swab up and down with a pendant on both ends is about the easiest way to clean it.

Look, too, for damaged plastic slugs that can hang up in the groove. Replace those that are nicked up or misshapen.

When it’s time to set sail, your best ally will be a good, long-lasting lubricant to minimize friction between the mast track and slides, which are subjected to a lot of twisting as the sail goes up or down.

The best lubricant would be one that need be applied but once a season. For a mast already stepped or in mid-season, the halyard, combined with a light downhaul and a swab of some kind, can be used.

Practical Sailor collected an even dozen lubricants—for an initial bench test. Eight are pressurized sprays, which are very handy to use. Two are wet gels. The other two are a car wax and candle wax.

Testing for a wear factor, simulating the repeated hoisting and lowering of a sail, could not be included in the test procedure. It would be very difficult to set up dozens of perfectly-matched situations, with actual masts or pieces of mast, along with various kinds of sail slides and slugs. Instead we made our own testing station.

The Test Procedure To test the slipperiness of the lubricants, a 36″ x 36″ sheet of virgin aluminum was cut in half to create a long clean surface. To maintain the aluminum’s shape, 90° bends were “braked” on the two long edges (see photo).

Twelve columns were laid out on the aluminum, which was carefully examined for any surface imperfections. Applying the lubricants to the “chutes” required meticulous masking to preclude adjacent contamination.

Half of the eight sprays dried quickly (within 30 minutes), which is desirable. The other four remained oily. The two gels remained wet after several hours of drying time.

The wet ones—two gels and four sprays—were given 24 hours to dry. None dried completely (which would be inconvenient in a real situation). Rather than give the wet ones more drying time, we gently wiped the chute surfaces clear of any oily residue.

In addition, the residue on some of the quick-drying sprays was wiped clean.

Because some of the chutes still seemed slightly oily, the entire assembly was then set aside for an entire weekend, in the hope that each chute would become as dry as it was ever doing to get.

Note: If one were working on a mast, any lubricants that require extended drying time and repeated wiping would be vexing.

After 2-1/2 days, the test resumed.

Common plastic dishes, chosen because they are most likely to be identical, were loaded with one-pound weights. A string from each dish was lead over the edge of the aluminum. Small weights were hooked on the ends of the string, increasing the load until the dish suddenly moved (like a team of huskies breaking loose a sled). Once the dish was in motion, it slid slowly but smoothly to the edge… and stopped, because the direction of the pull had changed.

By using combinations of weights down to 1/2 ounce, it was easy to grade the lubricants. The “first runs” proved very accurate. Subsequent runs, during which the bottoms of the dishes probably picked up lubricants, were invariably consistent and supportive of the first run data—which is displayed in the chart.

Because durability is a large factor, the test was repeated after extended exposure.

Initial Results In the first round of tests, the best lubricant required less than half the “pull weight” of the best. This suggests that the best was twice as slippery as the worst. The weights necessary for each lube are shown in the chart in the initial test column.

The top product was Team McLube Sailkote. Tied for second were the Superlube and CRC. Fourth was 3M. All those are sprays. The worst, working up from the bottom, were the S & Z gel, the Kel spray, and the Woody Wax pump spray.

Worth noting, because of their showing after exposure, is that the candle wax and car wax did not stand out. They posted middling rankings, with candle wax tied for fifth and the car wax tied for eighth.

Final Results After two months of exposure, the results changed dramatically, as might be expected. These results indicate which lubricant is still working well in comparison with the others.

The top lubricant was Elmer’s, which jumped from a tie for eighth place in the initial test to first, after exposure. Equally surprising was rather ordinary car wax, which moved from fifth initially to second place, and the candle wax, which vaulted from eighth to third.

As finally ranked, the best common products proved superior after exposure to the three “marine” lubes. Sailkote, which had a final rank of fourth, was the best “marine” product, and in fairness we should note that it’s a “performance” product, normally reapplied whenever things on racing boats start to slow down. Sea Spray tied for fifth (with 3M). Fastrac was ninth.

Price probably is not much of a factor in the selection of a sail track lubricant. But, for what it’s worth, Elmer’s (at 95¢ an ounce) emerged as the clear Best Buy.

All of this reinforces the opinion of many boat owners that things labeled for “marine” use too often carry inflated prices.

Fastrac, at $16 an ounce, must hold some kind of entrepreneurial record.

Of the three marine products, only the Mariner’s Choice Sea Spray, at 82¢ an ounce, carries a price to compete with Elmer’s.

All things considered, we can see no reason not to try candle wax, which works very well with external metal track, or, for a mast slot, a good non-abrasive car wax applied with a piece of rolled-up toweling with pull lines made of small stuff.

Contacts • CRC, 800/272-4620, www.crcindustries.com • Elmer’s, 800/848-9400, www.elmers.com • Fastrac, 905/763-8711, www.iaw.on.ca/~robemell/millen/fastrac/index.html • Kel, 800/334-2130 • Sailkote, 899/262-5823, www.mclube.com • Mariner’s Choice Sea Spray, 562/598-5861 • 3M, 800/364-3577, www.3M.com • S & Z, 800/327-8583, www.starbrite.com • Superlube, 800/253-5823, www.super-lube.com • Woody Wax, 800/619-4363, www.woody-wax.com

RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR

Yet another article with a broken link to the guide, or no guide when there should be.

The title should read “Lubricants”, not “Lubrican’ts”!

Elmers is now 45.00 for a 4oz can!

That is because Elmer’s Slide-All is discontinued and any stock out there is old stock.

(Elmer’s parent company was broken up by a private equity firm, and many Borden Corporation products were killed off because of that)

Time for Practical Sailor to do another test with current products.

For example…. WD40 Brand now makes a PTFE Dry Film Lubricant.. Many others do too. Testing McLube’s other non marine specific dry film lubes would also be interesting, from a price comparison standpoint.

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traveler track Genoa

32mm T- Track is widely used on cruising boats where car sheeting positions change infrequently.

traveler track NTR/Ocean

... Duty Beam track is available in sizes 1 and 2 and is used when spanning cockpits and across companion way hatches. Three fixing bolts should always be used either side of the span and washers fitted under the head ...

traveler track system 2758.1.1M.20

... the balls captive when the car is removed from the track . The hardcoat-anodized track has three pivoting attachment points that distribute the load. Track is offered in 20 or 50 mm heights. ...

self-tacking jib track ST22

... contains two side brackets with universal deck fittings and a ball-joint to orientate the bent track . Choose between a number of standard radiuses of the track based on the J-measurement of the boat (front ...

traveler track 442-001-01

Weight: 529.00 g System: 22 Profile: Standard Length: 1000 Comment: Hole spacing 100mm Fasteners: M5

traveler track 442-002-01

Weight: 517.00 g System: 22 Profile: Pinstop Length: 1000 Comment: Hole spacing c-c (mm) = 100, Pin stop c-c = 50 Fasteners: M5 Type: Straight

traveler track KMS30

traveler track KMS40

KMS40 track for yacht up to 50′ (40′ for racing yachts).

traveler track Series 19 C

... rotation. C- Track Traveller System Series 19, Cars FEATURES Spring-loaded plunger stops allow fast, positive positioning of track slides Slides are available with swivelling cleat and fairlead ...

traveler track T602100

50mm Mainsheet track with sliding bolt, available with silver or black anodization and a maximum length of 6000 mm. *Special washers required for installation, Part no: T609008. 32mm Mainsheet track ...

traveler track T605100

50mm High beam track with sliding bolt, available with silver or black anodization and a maximum length of 6000 mm. *Special washers required for installation, Part no: T609008. 32mm High beam track ...

traveler track T652100

... to 50 feet. The travellers are available in two different models, either with plunger stop for tracks with stop holes or with a control line sheave for tracks with concealed fastening function. There ...

Bimini top track 72-49

Track Size 1-1/4" x 3/16" (32 mm x 5 mm), Boat Size Up To LOA, Displ., Sail Area 38', 12000 lbs., 520 sq. ft. (10 m, 5455 kg, 48 m2), L 4" (102 mm), W 1-11/16" (43 mm), H 1-3/4" (45 mm), Eye 1" ...

Bimini top track 140-010-022

TOP LINE SLIDING SIDE FLAT ATTACHMENT - Size 100 cm.

traveler track 36511

Profile track with 5 m length. Material strength 1,5 mm.Profile track with 5 m length. Material strength 1,5 mm.

traveler track system A4491

... on the market. Carefully designed, the CNC turned adjustable aluminium legs allow the geometry to work on the curved beam track at any angle, whilst the A4489F traveller car has a forked attachment point. Hard anodised black.

traveler track 339007

Forespar® offers anodized aluminum T- track in one standard size. Track comes pre-drilled with alternating pin-stop and mounting holes. The base of the track is gently curved to better ...

sailboat track system 20 090

... Allowing you to incorporate Mainsheet track system for shorthanded sailing The Removable Mainsheet Track System, which is ideally suited for all yachts up to 11.0m (36ft). This adaptable mainsheet ...

traveler track

Track in aluminium, anodised minimum 30 my. Available in natural or black colour. This track is produced in standard lengths from 1,0 m up to 6,0 m and is available in 22 mm , 30 mm and 42 mm width.

... Furlerboom mast track , each with headboard cars available being able to suit any demand. This enables us to deliver a safe and reliable mast track system from the smaller to heavy displacement yachts ...

traveler track 140 series

» Aluminum material with high strength, delicacy appearance, longer block life » Preservative treatment » Predrilled with holes for mounting fasteners

traveler track 7437001

For boats ≤ 7m Length: up to 6m Spacing of detent holes: 35mm Spacing of drill holes: 70mm Weight approx. 290g/m Colour: Silver, available in black on request suitable for 5mm Screws type DIN 965

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Saddling up on the high seas - the cyclists powering 50-mph yachts

• Published 2 September 2024

Sitting on a bike and pedalling is something Simon van Velthooven has done for countless kilometres and hours during his cycling career. He has done it well, winning Olympic, World and Commonwealth medals on the track.

He still pedals a bike for a living, but the New Zealander's life as a 'cyclor' on a sailing boat in the America's Cup is now very different.

"You're just getting shaken around, holding on while you're turning some cranks that are veering a lot," Van Velthooven tells BBC Sport.

"It's RPM [revolutions per minute], power, watts, cadence, shaking, high turbulence, getting punch-drunk by whacking your head on the walls and trying to look at your numbers on your screen, and listening to all the comms of the sailors and what they're doing and trying to anticipate your energy levels coming up to the next manoeuvre."

Van Velthooven is among the wave of cycling experts that have crossed over to the world of sailing before the 37th edition of the America's Cup - the oldest international sailing competition in the world - this autumn in Barcelona.

Traditionally everything above the waterline on the 75ft-long boats - the sails, mast and winches - was powered by grinders, sailors who used their arms to turn cranks.

Yet technological rule changes for this year's competition have reduced crew sizes from 11 people to eight, but with the proviso that any body part can now be used to create power.

As legs can typically produce more power than arms, cyclors have been brought in and static pedalling systems installed on the boats. Teams estimate they have since seen a 25-30% gain in watts produced per athlete by using the lower part of their body rather than upper.

Cyclors are not entirely new. They were also used during in the 2017 staging of the America's Cup in Bermuda by Emirates Team New Zealand, which is how 35-year-old Van Velthooven was initially recruited to sailing from cycling.

The Kiwis were outliers during that competition as the only crew to try the technology, although it was to great effect as they won the Cup. They retained the title in 2021 when rules required a return to grinders.

This time around the cyclor technology is being used by all six competing teams.

Van Velthooven (crouched, far right) was one of the cyclors on Emirates New Zealand's ground-breaking 2017 victory

America's Cup: Schedule, guide and Ainslie's quest for historic win

• Published 21 August

This year's America's Cup boats - known as AC75s - are "designed to fly" across the water on a foiling monohull, racing at speeds of up to 50 knots (58mph).

For athletes with no experience of sailing, seasickness is an obvious first hurdle they need to overcome before they can become a cyclor.

Two athletes were unwell during trials with New York Yacht Club American Magic and were dropped.

"They've got to be able to perform in somewhat high-G [force] situations when the boat's getting spun around," says Terry Hutchinson, president of sailing operations at American Magic.

"Then they've got to be able to perform day in, day out in the sun and heat of Barcelona. It takes quite a unique athlete to achieve that."

Cyclors are not built the same as the professional cyclists at the Tour de France or Olympics. For cyclists, body weight and watts per kilogram are key to how they perform.

However, cyclors do not need to pull themselves up a mountain or around a track. They simply need to produce as big a wattage as possible when the boat needs it.

"There are some unique things we are looking for in this particular sport," says Ben Day, head performance coach of the American Magic team.

"When we're talking about Tour de France cyclists, we're maybe looking at someone who is 60kg up to 75-80kg. All of our guys are running 90kg and above.

"It's a bit of a unique skillset. We have guys who are super strong and we're just looking for absolute power."

Former cyclist Ashton Lambie, like Van Veltooven, has swapped over to sailing purely for his credentials on a bike.

Lambie is a former individual pursuit world champion. In 2021, he became the first rider in history to break the four-minute barrier for a 4km-long effort round the track.

He joined the American Magic team after a trial and his body shape has changed considerably over the last two years since.

"Even by cycling standards I was a fairly big guy, I am moderately well known for having big legs and they've gotten bigger since I've come here," Lambie says.

"During my racing career I was probably between 70 and 74kg, and now I've gained over 10kg. Most of it is muscle, and I've also gained watts. It's been a really big change."

Ashton Lambie won an individual pursuit world title in 2021 in Roubaix, but the 33-year-old now brings his power to a different kind of vehicle

Lambie, 33, says the only similarity to cycling is that the cyclors are pedalling in the same motion as on a regular bike.

"The pedalling feels very different and the overall sensations of moving on the water, either laterally or vertically, is wildly different from any kind of cycling," Lambie says.

"When you go through a corner on the track the banking pulls you in and the G-force pushes down on you - that's a very natural feeling when you lean into the corner.

"But on a boat it's like you're upright and somebody just whips the boat around so you're getting slammed, it's a purely lateral load.

"It looks quite static and stable when you're watching it on TV but the boat really moves a lot.

"We do a lot of stability work and mobility work in the gym and that definitely translates over to the boat when you're getting jostled around a lot and you still need to be able to pedal.

"The times when the boat's a little unstable, you're getting thrown around the most, that's when it's most important to pedal. Being able to put out power even when you're not in an optimal pedalling position is huge."

Ineos Britannia lost out to Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli to be the challenger for the America's Cup the last time it was held, in 2021

The races take place across head-to-head events that are split into two parts.

The first part - the Louis Vuitton Cup - determines which of five challengers will face this year's defending champion Emirates Team New Zealand in the second, the America's Cup itself.

Races take approximately 25 minutes and this year start in August and end in October.

Endurance is the key metric for cyclors, who need to be able to consistently produce a high wattage during the races themselves and maintain their form across 10 weeks.

"We just want a huge reliable engine for the three months that we're going to be racing," Van Velthooven says.

"Big days are big days and easy days are still big days because they still need heaps of power. It's relentless."

The UK's Ineos Britannia team, led by Sir Ben Ainslie, might not have recruited professional cyclists to their crew like some of their rivals but they have the next best thing - an affiliation with the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team, formerly Team Sky and winner of seven Tours de France.

Matt Gotrel is part of Ineos Britannia's crew. This year will be his second America's Cup, but his first as a cyclor rather than grinder. A former Olympic gold medal-winning rower, having been part of Great Britain's eight at Rio 2016, Gotrel has found it a "big challenge" to train a different muscle group, even if recreationally he considered himself a cyclist already.

"As rowers, we had an upside-down pyramid [body shape] before, but it's flipped around now," Gotrel says.

As grinders, his crew would aim to produce 400 watts of power over 20 minutes. As cyclors they are now "well north of that".

Training for the past two years has predominantly taken place on the road or in the gym, rather than on water. Volume blocks can consist of four to six-hour-long rides, three times a week, interspersed with high-intensity intervals on a static bike and weight training.

Gotrel, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, compares powering the boats in a race to a cycling time trial, but with repeated sprint efforts throughout.

"You want to have a really good aerobic base where you can sit at as high a power as possible without producing too much lactate, and then you have your big spikes and need to be able to recover from those," he says.

The connection to Ineos' cycling team has been a "massive" resource for Gotrel and his fellow cyclors, enabling them to share training and nutritional insight on a training camp in Spain together.

"I had a chat with [sprinter Elia] Viviani about some sprinting technique, and then there are Filippo Ganna and Dan Bigham who have been really good on some of the strategy and fuelling things and what they did to push on the hour record," says Gotrel

Gotrel's training now takes in open roads as well as open water

Hutchinson says the America's Cup is a "design competition as much as a sailing competition" and development of the boats has been a process lasting more than two and a half years.

Part of the challenge has been incorporating the concept of a bike into a boat.

Most teams have chosen to position the cyclors upright, as they would be on a regular bike - even if the 'bike' consists of just a seat, seatpost and crank.

"We started it by scanning a standard bike and putting that in a boat and seeing what position you'd need to put the cyclors in," says David Adcock, Ineos Britannia’s lead mechanic.

"Some of the ideas we came up with at the start looked really strange from a cycling perspective - head down pretty much touching your feet - but we kind of went away from that and have gone back to a standard bike position that was best for getting power out."

In order to maximise the aerodynamics, the cyclors are below deck. They don't have much to look at beyond a screen showing their data.

"Trying to get someone who's 6ft 3in to fit has been quite challenging," says Adcock. "We've got handlebars that we can move up and down to get them packaged in properly."

By contrast, the American Magic team have chosen to put the cyclors in the recumbent position, lying almost flat on their backs.

"It's the America's Cup and so it takes clever thinking to be successful. I would look to Team New Zealand's success in 2017 - they were the outlier then and they won the regatta," Hutchinson says.

"We're not afraid to be different, we understand the power requirements of the boat."

Barcelona will become the first city in the world to host both an Olympic Games and the America's Cup

Adcock describes the AC75 as like an "F1 car on water" and the links between the America's Cup and Formula 1 are easy to find.

Ineos Britannia share their UK base with the Mercedes team - where Ineos is also a sponsor. Adcock previously spent 22 years working for Mercedes before moving across in 2022.

American Magic have also spent time with the Williams team to see how they work.

Each boat can produce more than 3,000 data points within half a second and send them to engineers onshore for analysis in real time.

"The steering wheels look more like an F1 wheel with the functions on the wheel and how the boat's programmed to automatically shift mode. That side of it is very similar," says Hutchinson.

"If you're good at Call of Duty [video game] you're probably really good at sailing an AC75 because it's a similar controller."

Ineos Britannia are aiming to become the first British challenger to win the America's Cup

The technological advancements in the sport have taken the America's Cup far away from the experience of most traditional sailors. The return of cyclors for this year's race has moved that dial even further.

"It's hard for the average sailor to relate to what we're doing," admits Hutchinson, who has been part of five America's Cups.

"They look at the boat and there are a lot of traditionalists out there who say 'this actually isn't racing'.

"But I bet you and I couldn't hop into an F1 car and understand how to turn the thing on. We understand the concept of the car, we know we can drive a car, but we probably can't drive one of those cars. I equate it to that.

"The America's Cup is a unique competition, it's always been at the tip of the sphere of the sport."

The crossover of cycling into sailing might seem incongruous, but at the heart of the two sports is a very similar culture, Day believes.

That shared ground has made blending the two so successful.

"There seems to be a correlation between sailors who love toys and boats and cyclists who love bikes and toys," says Day. "We all have this sense of freedom of getting out into nature with the wind in our hair.

“Whether it's on a boat or on a bike, it seems to be something we can enjoy together.”

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