Genoa Lead Cars

[steve brown]

Advice requested: I have noticed that the sheaves on my genoa cars are deteriorating. They have lost their shape and are now oval. I believe they are original equipment, Barton/England, on my 1982 CP19. My 1 inch wide lead tracks are 4 feet long and anchored with 18 or so small bolts 3 inches on center. I ordered series 40 Ronstan genoa lead cars but they will not fit over the tracks. I hate to change tracks as the current tracks have 4 inch mounting centers, meaning I will lots of holes to fill and new ones to drill out. I would really just like to replace the sheaves or find cars to fit my tracks. Your advice is very  much appreciated. Regards, Steve

[pelican]

Advice requested: I have noticed that the sheaves on my genoa cars are deteriorating. They have lost their shape and are now oval. I believe they are original equipment, Barton/England, on my 1982 CP19. My 1 inch wide lead tracks are 4 feet long and anchored with 18 or so small bolts 3 inches on center. I ordered series 40 Ronstan genoa lead cars but they will not fit over the tracks. I hate to change tracks as the current tracks have 4 inch mounting centers, meaning I will lots of holes to fill and new ones to drill out. I would really just like to replace the sheaves or find cars to fit my tracks. Your advice is very  much appreciated. Regards, Steve

I had the same problem with My C19. Masthead down here in St Petersburg Fl. Used my old cars and replaced sheeves etc.  They did a great job and it looks factory original. The price was less then a new set. Masthead has treated me well, but I would think any good sailing shop/fabricator would be capable of doing it.

[pelican]

PS... masthead has a web site with contact information. ... It might be worthwhile to send them down here.. Also, they tried to find another car to fit my tracks and they couldn't find anything made currently.. Hence ,the fabrication. Good luck !

Terry

[steve brown]

Thanks for the great information. Steve

[Craig Weis]

A one inch track to me is a bit wide for a C-P 19. I'm not sure but mine may be 7/8"
I don't know. But lead cars for both ought to be had by many outlets...don't you think so.

As a 'sort of a complaint' about C-P's is my cars when the line is slack lay-over. When coming about sometimes my forward sheet becomes jammed between the roller [pulley] and the metal stamping holding the pulley. Then I have to free it up by hand. What a pain. I think I'd like cars with a pulley that is less wide.

Hint...Additionally a small cut piece of hard plastic tubing, slit and forced under the pivot keeps the car standing up and then less prone to jamming the line. Works for me. skip.

[pelican]

A one inch track to me is a bit wide for a C-P 19. I'm not sure but mine may be 7/8"
I don't know. But lead cars for both ought to be had by many outlets...don't you think so.

As a 'sort of a complaint' about C-P's is my cars when the line is slack lay-over. When coming about sometimes my forward sheet becomes jammed between the roller [pulley] and the metal stamping holding the pulley. Then I have to free it up by hand. What a pain. I think I'd like cars with a pulley that is less wide.

Hint...Additionally a small cut piece of hard plastic tubing, slit and forced under the pivot keeps the car standing up and then less prone to jamming the line. Works for me. skip.

I agree and that makes perfect sense to me. However, the fine gentleman that manages Masthead Enterprises came by and measured my C19 for sails a couple of years ago. He measured my tracks at 1'' and ordered replacement cars/pulleys.

The new ones looked like they would be a perfect  fit ,but they were a slightly different shape and wouldn't slide on my tracks. Masthead kept my cars for a couple of weeks and tried to find replacements without any luck. They called the compac folks and couldn't get them there either.

They cut the pulleys,springs ,etc off the old cars and put new Harken assemblys back on my old cars. The only other option at the time was to replace the tracks. I don't know if these same type cars/tracks were used on all C19s. Maybe just the very early models. At any rate, they did a great job and all is well. My old tracks stayed and the new pulleys work great

Somebody... somewhere ,may have some NOS replacements sitting on a shelf. When I read the post... The light came on because this was the same experience I had.

Terry

[steve brown]

Hi Terry, Yesterday I sent my cars down to Masthead Enterprises. They will modify them as they did yours. They are also going to make me a new set of life lines that I requested. Thanks again for your friendly advice. Steve

[pelican]

They are very good folks and will go out of their to help out a fellow sailor in distress. They have been more then helpful to me. And .... they are a distributor for Compac. Hopefully you will be as happy with them as I am.

Best of Luck
Terry

[Johann]

I actually used Ronstan blocks to replace the original Bartons for the Genoa cars and the main sheet blocks too. I just used a Dremel to grind the pins off of the original blocks and pried off the side plates to remove them off of the stand-up springs. The installation of the Ronstans (40 series) on the spring mounts was relatively easy. Actually, every one of the blocks on Udara Tanda are Ronstan now. Please see the attached image or link (whichever works). If anybody wants, I can take better close-up pics of the retrofit work. It looks factory and they work great!

Johann.



http://com-pacowners.com/gallery2/displayimage.php?album=70&pos=1

[pelican]

Good Idea Johann,

Thats the nice thing about this forum.... It's good to have a place to exchange ideas and help each other out.

By the way, your boat looks great.. all your hard work and pride of ownership shows.

Easy launches and fine sailing

Terry

[Johann]

Thanks Terry, I appreciate it.

By the way, I've taken your advice and ran Udara Tanda out on Lake Tarpon (twice now). Took the In-Laws out just after Christmas and we had a great time. The winds were relatively constant and stiff enough to move us along at hull speed with our old, baggy original sails. Then we went out this past Saturday and used the time to practice our skills. We put in at Anderson Park, then ran all the way down to Chesnut. Since the water temp was 72 degrees, we dropped the hook just south of Chesnut Park in a small cove off the no-wake zone, put up a diver's flag and had a ball diving from the sides of the bow to catch fenders thrown on the water, then swimming back to the boarding ladder. After that, I practiced throwing our life ring in the water to haul in the girls and discovered the line I have on it is about half the length it needs to be. I'll be changing that.

Lots of nautical type stuff was learned on this trip, plus we got to watch an Ultra-Light take off on the lake and on the way back in, we watched a mini-regatta of 5 Sunfishes practicing holding formation on the west side of the lake. We even tied up to the seawall at the eastern end of Anderson Park to pause and reflect on the swinging chair by the water's edge for a while, then finally headed over to the ramp. Altogether, a nice day. Thanks again for the 'places to sail' pointers. I mentioned our plans to sail Lake Tarpon to the previous owner and he said that Udara Tanda had never been in fresh water, so it was a first for our vessel too.

As for the Genoa Cars, I couldn't finding suitable replacement cars no matter where I looked and I was worried about getting new tracks that might have a diffent hole spacing that the originals. Instead, I replaced the blocks and am quite pleased with the results. This also worked for replacing the single block and combination fiddle block, Becket and cam cleat unit used on the main sheet system.

The next plans are to add 'hank clips' on the mast to hang the hanked halyards on after the sails have been hoisted and replace the worn out Cunningham block set on the mast and boom. This past weekend I started working with the Cunningham, and between it and the boom vang, I found they have a significant effect on trimming and flattening the somewhat baggy main sail.

Now I can understand how a sailboat is never truly finished and is actually, a continuous work in progress.

Johann.

Fair winds and following seas, to all...

[pelican]

I am glad you enjoy Tarpon.... It's a great place to practice and have some fun.....

I have my boat all finished except for Buffing/waxing out the hull  this year, replacing the teak trim, Replacing the cabin cushions, mounting my new compass, mounting my new depth finder, and the list goes on.. Well, almost finished... LOL

Terry

[steve brown]

Update on my Genoa lead cars. I had sent my Barton lead cars down to Masthead Enterprises and received them about a week ago. They replaced the Barton blocks with Harken 40, #2636, carbo blocks. They had new stand-up springs installed also, but the springs did not match. The springs also jammed against the bottom of the blocks making for poor movement, as there were no guide cups installed. I called them about this but have yet to receive a return call. In the mean time I researched this a bit more having many catalogs including Harken and Ronstan. To conclude, I ordered two Harken H071 springs and two HSB2 spring caps from APS and put the cars together myself. I had to compress the 2 inch long springs down about 1/2 inch to get it all together. I stuffed wadded up paper towel in the block and shackle to take up the slack in the parts to allow easy insert of the shackle pin. In retrospect, I coud have done this myself. We will see how it all works out come Spring. May 1st can't come soon enough. Thanks for all your advice sailors. Regards, Steve

[pelican]

Steve,

Thats a real shocker...They have always been first class with us. This is a major sailing center. They have been in St.Pete for years serving the sailing community.

I feel terrible about reccomending them and you having a problem. Try to call them back and if you don't get satisfaction, please let me know. I will drive over and see what I can do locally.  Anyway, a hard lesson learned about recomending businesses.... Don't

[steve brown]

Hi Terry, Please don't be upset by my situation. They did do a real nice job making me new life lines that I requested. The Harken blocks are nice also. They just must have run out of parts (springs, etc.) and did not want to hold up my order. However I would like to find 1- 1/2 inch long x 7/8 inch diameter springs. The 2 inch springs that I have now seem to exert a lot of pressure on the blocks when they are compressed. The 7/8 inch diameter spring allows room for the shackle pin and they fit into the guide cap nicely. Please let me know how you make out if you get to talk to the dealer. I have no ill feelings toward them. Regards, Steve