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Hey, skippers, how about some suggestions for cleaning an internal sail track? After my main is about halfway up the mast, I have to pull like hell to get it the rest of the way, and use the winch to tension the luff. I suspect the sail track is gunked up. Help, help, please.
Cut a piece of hand soap nearly to the shape of your sail slides. Insert it between the top and the next car. This soap will lubricate and clean the track. It will wash way with rain and will not cause any stains on the sail.
Thanks a million, celenoglu. That's a slick idea. I live in the San Juan Islands of NW Washington, where it rains a bit all right. Watch for the soapsuds in my wake.
I had some old track slides. I took 2 of them, and connected them with a 1" bar of aluminum. I then fit a piece of the really coarse (red) scotch-brite pad between them. Then, I taped an old hinge to the top of a can of McLube Sailcoat, so that when I pushed the hinge, it activates the sprayer. Finally, I taped the can of McLube to the 1" aluminum bar.
I attach a halyard to the top track slide, and a line to the bottom and feed the whole contraption into the track. I also have another line attached to the hinge, so that I can use the spray can remotely.
I pull the thing up and down the track a few times, so that the scotch brite can do it's thing, then, starting at the top, I pull the whole mess down the track while activating the sprayer.
The Scotchbrite - trimmed to fit the width of the track, goes in between the two sail track slides. The pad that I use is actually from a floor sander.
Go to Home Depot, in the tool rental section, and you can buy them. It is the red thing in this pic;
They are about 1" thick, and 12" x 18" in size. One pad will give you enough pads to outlast your boat.
Lopezian- I've had pretty good luck just spraying each slug as it goes up liberally with McLube, do it several times and it loosens things up. I've also heard of using a piece of sponge soaked in McLube, stick it in the track between two slugs on the sail and run it up.
Love the spray can device, anything that incorporates duct tape isn't over engineered in my book. I like it.
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