I believe they should be mounted on a track and left there. In one of my links and the links within that link, one of our skippers said he bought ONE and then had to race around to move it to the OTHER SIDE!!!! when he docked for fuel. Nonsense! Buy two.
Tripping hazard? Yes, could be. Based on the geometry of your deck and track, it may or may not be an issue. Because of the way my boat is laid out, even with its wide side decks, I almost always hit one because the "stride" from cockpit to past the dodger puts my foot (feet?
) there. Because of that, I NEVER go forward without shoes on, and also feel that while some think bare feet give good traction, it doesn't work for me.
In many cases, there are end stops on tracks which make taking them on & off a PITA, right? I have mine FORWARD of the jib fairlead cars, so I wouldn't do that anyway. I also left the track stops OFF when I put the cleats on the track. It doesn't affect the cleats, since I never take them off, but changing the fairlead cars is made lots easier, since I never have to mess with the track stop ever again.
I also disagree about the placement issue. You can use a midships spring line all the way from your jib sheet winch to any point around midships. The real issue is simply how much line you pay out to the dock cleat and how much throttle and helm you need to "balance" the boat. Try it and you'll see. I used to use the jib sheet winch on our C25, now use the track cleats on our C34.
Just sharing my reality, YMMV, but probably not too much.
rg, yes, you could use glue for the strakes, but two small screws ain't gonna mess up your gunwales. I still don't think you need them, I haven't after 17 years.
Good luck.
