Sail slides and slugs might not be the flashiest part of a sailboat, but they are essential for smooth sailing.
These components attach the sail to the mast or boom, making hoisting, lowering, and reefing sails more efficient and less strenuous. Here’s a comprehensive guide on why they are used, the variety available, and their benefits.
Sail slides and slugs provide several advantages over traditional bolt ropes:
Reduced Friction: Slides and slugs reduce friction between the sail and the mast, making it easier to hoist and lower sails.
Ease of Use: With a track stop installed the sail remains attached to the mast. This allows single-handed operation and prevents the sail from being blown away when hoisting or lowering the sail. Using Slides also allows the sail to stack easily when dropped.
The Pad-Tii range was launched in 2019 following feedback from the marine industry for the need for soft attachment deck fittings.
Pad-Tii’s are a great choice if you are looking to add an attachment point to a surface. They offer minimal protrusion yet are easy to thread rope around and give a strong, solid fixing point for any fitting. (more…)
Team Allen – Billy Vennis-Ozanne Update
What a year 2020 has been.
It started at the RYA Dinghy Show for which I had to prepare my new International Moth – an Aardvark Rocket – to be displayed on the Zest Boatworks stand, completely bare, to highlight the fantastic paint job they did. Once the show had finished it was a quick pack down to get the boat back to the shed and fully fitted out with its new Allen hardware. Some of the hardware includes the anodised XHL blocks and through deck bushes, which I feel really make the paintwork pop, and adds another layer of personalisation that i really relish. I take a lot of pride in how my boats look, a good looking boat is a fast boat!
Once she was ready and rigged in the workshop, well, we all know what happened, so she was parked in my front garden for a while teasing me to go sailing.
Being released onto the water after such a wait made it all worth it. I managed 2 weeks of training prior to the UK Moth Nationals, which as a class we were very fortunate to be able to run. What a week!! Finished on a little high by leading to the top mark in the last race. An awesome 3 weeks of intense racing and training with some top guys and girls.
I’ve been actively looking for a new team-mate in the 49er after going sperate ways from Nick, with whom I had a successful 4-year sailing partnership. Fortunately, while talking to fellow Team Allen sailor, Dan Budden, it came to light that Jack Lewis was looking to start 49er sailing. Jack and I have sailed together in the past, right at the beginning of my journey with Allen – Back when the maybe unknown custom ‘Alien’ stickers donned our RSFeva in 2013 for a couple of events.
Fast forward a month, a couple of sails and a new old team was formed. We’ve been extremely fortunate to be able to sail over winter getting in as many hours as possible, We look forward to the summer events once we are all allowed to travel a bit more. – Billy Vennis-Ozanne
