New Track for the 90

During my 'new-rig' shakedown sail, my main objective was to figure out if I could put track on top of the house and point a few degrees higher. However, after a bit of experimentation it was clear that I would be messed up by the forward lower shrouds. Maybe that's why many C&C's have a baby stay instead of forward lowers -- a baby stay would allow the track to be as far inboard as possible and still maintain decent sail shape off the wind.

It's funny, but mentioning new track elicited groans of sympathy from dozens of people.
But over the last year, when I mentioned my work on the rig rebuild, I got blank looks
and questions about whether I was ready to raft up next weekend....
I guess that's because people don't usually do major surgery on the rig, but everybody's had to add new track.
Adding track was really easy. The biggest pain was deciding where to put it.

I eventually put the track outboard of the shrouds to keep the sheets from chafing on the turnbuckles.
I don't want corrosion-inducing 'chafe protection' on my new turnbuckles and rod ends.
Bare turnbuckle threads would chew the heck out of my sheets.
I noticed that this boat points pretty darn high regardless. The keel plays a bigger role in the boat's pointing ability than I had previously understood.

After playing with the boat a while, I think the *ultimate* spot would be inboard about 8 inches and three inches ahead of the main lower shrouds, with the sheet fed between the shrouds. When close hauled, the sail shape would keep the sheets away from the turnbuckles. If there's a reasonable performance advantage, I'll stick a big ol' padeye there for a block, just for those times when I need that extra few degrees. In the meantime, this points as high as my old I28,
which embarrassed many other boats.
(I don't race, but since I own a C&C I might as well rig the boat for performance!)

The only thing that you might find interesting about this installation is the screws I installed for the track-ends.
(The track ends serve to keep you from ripping
your bare feet into bloody broken-toed messes
when walking on deck. This is empirical knowledge...)

It's good to be able to take them off easily if you want to deal with the car or add something like a "track cleat" during an extended tie-up. Rather than through-bolt them, I drilled a hole partially through the deck, and set a machine screw into it.

The idea is to create a watertight threaded socket in the deck. So after drilling the hole, I filled it with a thick putty
of West System epoxy and colloidal silica, then set a bolt into it. To keep the bolt from sticking,
I covered it with Olive Oil. (It was either that or 30 weight motor oil, folks.) I knew PAM would work, and I knew
Wesson Oil would work, but I didn't have either one on the boat at the moment,
so what the heck. Olive oil works fine, too. (Whew)

After the epoxy set, I broke the machine screw loose and set the track stopper in place.
I still packed the joint with LifeCaulk, just in case.

Just drilling screws into a cored deck will eventually leak and rot the core. Not on MY boat!

The backing plates are made from 1/8" thick by 1 1/4" wide galvanized steel bars from McMaster-Carr. I took the bars, clamped them to the track, and drilled the holes. There's a 6 inch overhang at either end, just to help spread the stress around if I move the car to the ends of the track.

Naturally, all holes are drilled, then the core is reamed out for 1/4" around the edges and the hole is filled with Epoxy putty. After filling the holes, I ran the engine for 1/2 hour to shake out the bubbles. It's worth noting that on the C&C Landfall 38 all core in high stress areas is plywood, not balsa. It's balsa elsewhere.