Mainsail batten cars

[R&B]

Looking for input on replacing my batten cars....My main is full batten sail on a 1992 privilege cat....The cars looked and operated poorly and I figured it was time to give them some TLC....When I went to take off the first two cars you guest it all (not some) but all the bearings fell out.....(I assume that this is not normal..) I have never owned a full batten main before.....well this leads me to my dilema....Each car is marked with a lewmar stamp and a fredricksen stamp?.... A rep from lewmar had no idea what this could be.... and I cant find any company with the name of fredricksen.....can anyone recomend a simple but good set of batten cars that I wont have to rebuild my mast for....thanks in advance...

[cat man do]

G'day R & B , look at http://www.allyachtspars.com.au . Allyacht spars are one of if not the biggest mast builder in OZ and supply for Fredreikson, but more importantly have a batten car made from a light plastic material that is self lubricating , cheap and have no moving parts.

I've personally used these for about 12000 miles and give 'em the big thumbs up.

They get stuff in from overseas and build rigs for overseas clients so should have no problem getting stuff to you.

Good Luck

Dave

[Jon D]

I'm not sure but I think Ronstan bought them out a while back. All you probably need to do is reload the cars with new ball bearings. I have had to do that with my Harken battcars.. you also need to lube the track every so often with mclube or boshield... A good rigger can help you if you don't know where to go, but you should not need to replace the cars just the bearings, also you should have some car loaders to slide them off on to.

[senormechanico]

Fredericksen has been bought by Ronstan. Try them for parts.

[Sandero]

I have shaefers and the seem quite OK... on a 440 sq ft main with 4 full length battens.

[cat man do]

I think you may find that the balls may not be up to the high loads multis put on them.

I know with my traveller cars I had to get torlon ball 'cause the original spec stuff used to deform.

Not to sure about the maclube idea, found it gummed up my traveller after time and we had to stip and clean. A cheaper alternative was to use silicone spray from your local upolsterer. A huge aerosol can for a 1/4 of the price of the small maclube.

We used this on the mast but used a water/ metho mix in a squirt bottle for the traveller as the silicone is a bitch to get off if we needed to paint aroud the traveller area.

Hope this helps

[R&B]

Thanks everyone!!!!
Dave great sight that linked me to ronstan and I found a new version of what I have....Ron Thanks as well, but these cars have seen better days and I am a big believer in the weakest link theory and we are planning to do some heavy stuff in the future.....Thanks again

[classycoro]

The new harken battcars have captive bearings, the old ones did not. Often you will find a mix of makers parts in a battcar setup. Mine is Haken cars with Schaefer battslides.

Hands down the Harken is da shooey when it comes to battcars but you need lots of dosh to buy the setup. EXPENSIVE but worth it if your nuts.

And i am Totally insane for spending $7,000 for battcars.... they were more than my main.... BUT ANYWAY when I let go of tha halyard... swoosh down it comes and a couple of ties and i am done. Do you know how nice that is???

[Alan Wheeler]

Ummm, dunno, but I imgaine it would be a good $7K Grin. ;-) :-)

[cat man do]

I'd have to say that happened with the big green plastic ones from Allyacht Spars I mentioned earlier as well, but they only cost hundreds of dollars.

Dave