A number of people have asked us: “what do you do all day on a boat?”. Hopefully the following will at least shed light on this question of what Tom does all day. I should first apologize for readers that are not familiar with sailing and sailing hardware but hopefully the essence of the blog with still be appreciated.

It all started when I was putting the mainsail back on the boat when we returned in February. This is not a simple task partially because of its size, but more so because our main is equipped with what are known as “bat cars”. These small “cars” attach to a track on the back of the mast and onto the front of the sail. All eight of these have ball bearings inside that make them slide easily on the track, and make raising and lowering the main much easier (clear so far?). The problem is that to attach the mainsail to the back of the bat cars requires placing a bolt through the top of the bat car, through a loop sewn into the front of the mainsail, through the bottom of the bat car, then applying a nut and tightening the bolt with two wrenches. Oh, and did I mention the washers that need to go on the bolt above and below the loop in the sail? This is not an easy job and is made much more difficult by the fact that the mainsail is attached to the mast about six to seven feet off the deck. I have done this job a number of times but always thought there should be a simpler way.

I noticed some time ago that there is a piece of track (remember the track attached to the back of the mast?) that was cut in two places about two feet above the uppermost bat car, making it appear that this piece could be taken out, leaving a gap through which the bat cars could be removed one by one and attached to the main in a more civilized location… like on the deck. It seemed to me to be a simple task of removing this piece of track thereby making the job of reattaching the mainsail much easier.

So the job was to remove the piece of track, thereby freeing the bat cars. The track is attached to the mast by a series of bolts that seem to go into the back of the mast (or so I thought at the time). I had previously tried to remove the three bolts attaching this small piece of track but had failed, as the bolts were frozen. This time I would not take no for an answer, and after spraying them with a penetrating oil to loosen them I proceeded to snap the first bolt off! Not good! At this point I thought maybe my previous method of attaching the mainsail was not that bad. However, I now had one of three bolts broken off and no clear way to replace it.

I showed the broken off bit to a number of people in the boating industry and none had seen such an item. Without being able to see behind the track I was unable to remove or repair the broken bolt. I thus moved forward and removed the two other bolts. They turned out to be elongated nuts rather than the heads of bolts. I know this because one of the three actually came off as it should, leaving the bolt sticking out from the mast. With the three nuts so removed I was able to pry out the piece of track. To my surprise, I found that the bolts behind the track came out from the back of a series of aluminum sliders that slid in a groove on the back of the mast. (Those without sailing knowledge may want to give up now). Did I mention that all this was occurring about eight feet above the deck?

At this point I did something I should have done before starting this project. I checked with a rigging specialist about the type of bat cars we have on our boat. Some of them have encased ball bearings and some have free ball bearings. As suggested by the term, the ‘free’ ball bearing type allows the bearings to fall fall all over the place when the bat car is removed from its track. Unfortunately the bat cars we have are of the free type.

The astute among you will now realize that the whole project was futile. Remember my initial project to remove bat cars through the gap created by taking out the piece of track? If I had done that, I would have had ball bearings all over the deck and in the water. Certainly not an easier way to reattach a mainsail!

So while I avoided the disaster of flying bearings and would never remove the track again, I still had a piece removed with two out of three bolts broken. To replace the bolts requires removing the sliders from the mast. This can only be done from the bottom of the mast. Some of you may have guessed that this requires removing the piece of track below the short piece I already removed! I also had to find replacement nuts, that to this point no one I talked to had seen before. Luckily, there is the internet and I was able to find and purchase $150 worth of replacement nuts, bolts and sliders (they only come as sets).

Now I was set to finish the job. I found working at this level off the deck was best accomplished in a climbing harness. This required an assistant (Kim) to lift and lower me. With jobs like this it is always better to have an assistant! First I replaced the short piece of track. This allowed me to raise all the bat cars and the attached mainsail above the pieces I had to remove and reattach. (I had to wait for a calm day as this procedure involves partially raising the mainsail). I then removed the eight nuts that held the lower piece of track to the mast. Of the eight nuts, four broke off (good), two unscrewed as designed (ok but more work that breaking them off), and on two the head of the nut stripped (not good as this required drilling it out). Regardless, the two pieces of track were finally removed and I was able to tale out the sliders, put in new bolts from the back of the sliders, and then replace them in the mast. After lining up the sliders and new bolts with the holes in the track (not that easy in a vertical mast), reapplying the track and putting new nuts on (remember the mystery nuts), the job was almost done. The lower track was then lined up carefully with the upper track, the nuts were tightened, the bat cars and mainsail were slid down onto the lower track, and the bottom of the mainsail was reattached. Done!

Not a bad job. Now what’s next on my list!