Dear Tides Marine,
In 2010 we had a Tides Marine sail slide/track system installed in Fort Lauderdale. We now cruise the West Coast of Mexico and love the system. We use a sail cradle, with lazy jacks and let me tell you when we drop the main stand back. It comes racing down and drops into the sail cradle perfectly. Other than releasing the halyard, we don’t have to do anything. This frees us up to other details of anchoring and securing the boat upon arrival. Once settled down we tidy things up.
With this system the sail sets beautifully and we never feel exposed as we know we can drop the main anytime we want, with no worries about in-mast furling that may jam at the wrong time (is there ever a right time).
Recently I discovered a broken pin that attaches the batten to the slide, probably due to some overly vigorous young person who cleaned our sails for us over the summer. One email to Tides Marine and they had the replacement parts in the mail the same day at no charge!! Yup – no charge – now that is service to be proud of and I am damn happy to be able to provide this testimonial.
Colin & Margie Harris S/V Pacific Raven