Strong Sail System

[Bob Howie]

There's been a number of posts recently dealing with folks having problems getting mainsails up the mast and then back down. Likewise, there's been some discussions about how to solve this problem; everything from winching the things up to using downhauls to get them down along with using cases of this lube or that to make them go either way. Also, there was a post asking about the Strong system and how that works with several positive responses.Prior to all of this, I, too, had gotten fed up with the old system of lugs along the luff and having to use winches to sweat the main up. Folks, this ain't the way it's s'posed to be. So, upon recommendation of my sailmaker when I was having my mainsail converted to full battens, I installed the Strong system and the only thing I regret is I didn't do it sooner.Now, there are more expensive systems and maybe even more reliable systems, but for my 78h30, this is a good, dependable, competitively-priced solution. When I want the main to up, it's up; when I want to come down, I just uncleat the halyard and get out of the way, letting gravity take over.The track is a single piece of composite-type material milled to fit my mast slot. Now, "they'll" tell you "it's easy to install; takes maybe an hour." Ok; I'm leary of anything that takes "only" either 10 minutes or "maybe an hour" to install in the major systems category on a sailboat! Frankly, it takes a little more than that because in my case, I had to remove the boom AND the gooseneck, which required drilling out and later replacing 8 stainless steel 1/4" pop rivets at $4 each and I also had to modify the mast slot gate by grinding it to about a 3" "V" to get the Strong track to feed properly. However, once it got going, it did pretty much go up in about 10 minutes. Total project time, including reinstalling the main, was about 2 hours and change, more or less.The lugs on the sail have been replaced with lugs that go in the Strong track and the company says they've got systems out there that have been installed for 10 years without problems. Lazy Jacks completed the installation.Cost was about $1,200 including attaching the hardware to the sail, which didn't have to be recut because I have enough room on the outhaul to take care of the approximate 1-1/2" added by the slip-in track.Overall, I'd say the system is worthy of a look.

 

[D. Riha]

Second That

I put it on my 89H30 last year. Haulingthe sail up is not really much eaiser since I have to winch it up the last 1/4 of the mast but the real advantage is dropping it. Wham, right into the lazy jacks ready to be tied down. Installation of the track was easy although it took some effort to get the last part of the track up to the top of the mast.

 

[Bob Howie]

Last Few Inches

I've heard this complaint about the last few inches and how the winch needs to be used to "sweat" the luff the last few inches in the track. Actually, this is not a fault of either the track or the slides; more a problem of the physics involved in raising the sail. One must remember that the last few inches involves hauling the entire weight of the sail to the stop using a halyard running over a sheave and not a series of blocks and also from a position that's at something of a disadvantage from a leverage point of view. Actually, who cares? If all one has to do is use the winch the last few inches, great!!As to installing the track itself the last few inches, yes, I had the same problem, but solved it with a few gentle taps using a 12 oz. deadblow mallet.Personally, for the price, I think it's a helluva lot of value for the bucks and would recommend it to anyone.