{"id":70054,"date":"2021-05-17T19:16:51","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T23:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=70054"},"modified":"2023-05-06T23:06:57","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T03:06:57","slug":"harkens-all-soft-tie-jib-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/gear\/harkens-all-soft-tie-jib-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"Harken\u2019s All-Soft-Tie Jib Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"sailboat <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n The new 2767 car has no stainless hardware other than the ball bearing retainers\u2014no shackles, pins or ring-dings. Everything\u2019s meant to be soft-tied.<\/span>\n Courtesy Harken<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

An evolution of Harken\u2019s 2700 series of small-boat cars, the new 2767 car has no stainless hardware other than the ball bearing retainers\u2014no shackles, pins or ring-dings.  Everything\u2019s soft-tied.  In fact, there are just three main parts: an aluminum body, ball bearings and the two-ball bearing retainers. As a result, the car weighs in at an amazingly light 1.48 ounces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The design was inspired by Adam Palfrey, who had been using the 2702 cars on the athwartship jib tracks he designed for use in the Etchells class (\u201cA Sheeting Angle Solution\u201d<\/a>). For Palfrey, they were good, though not quite perfect, as he had to hog out a small section of aluminum on each car to allow the up-down line to work without chafing, plus they had stamped stainless control tangs with somewhat squared-off corners\u2014ok, but not optimum for a spliced traveller control line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Enter long-time Etchells sailor Chris Larson. \u201cIt started with him,\u201d says Palfrey. \u201cChris knew the amount of work that had to be done to get the original car to work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Larson, in turn, pulled Harken\u2019s Oakley Jones into the loop.  Says Jones, \u201cI looked at what Dog was doing and thought, \u2018We can do this better.\u2019  I sent pictures of Dog\u2019s modified car to one of our engineers and said, \u2018The Etchells class is currently modifying our 2702 car.  Apart from not looking as nice as we\u2019d like, the line going into it where it\u2019s been milled out is chafing and the pin eventually bending from the where the line was going around it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithin a couple of days, Oakley had a 3D type of drawing,\u201d Palfrey says.  \u201cAnd about three weeks later, he called and said \u2018Do you want to go ahead and buy some?\u2019 It was really impressive how quickly they turned this around.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cLuckily, we weren\u2019t starting from scratch,\u201d says Jones, \u201cso we could basically tweak the 2702 car to produce the new one. We carved away all the unnecessary aluminum we could and rounded all the edges.\u201d The car has the additional bonus of no plastic end caps, something that in older versions would deteriorate in the sun, eventually failing and releasing the bearings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The result is a car elegant in its simplicity. Traveller control lines run though rounded oval slots at each end, eliminating the need for tangs and providing a more rounded surface for control lines.  Splice-in or luggage-tag a piece of 1\/8 to 3\/16\u2033 Spectra or use a soft-tie block, such as one of Harken\u2019s Carbo T2 block series, for a 2-to-1 setup. Three shallow grooves at the end of each oval lock the soft-tie loops in place.  \u201cIt looks great, saves custom work, which is always expensive, and it\u2019s just perfect for the job,\u201d says Palfrey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"jib <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Harken’s ew 2767 car, a quick-development upgrade was spurred on by Etchells sailors, but it has far-ranging applications.<\/span>\n Courtesy Andrew Palf<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

The center slot has rounded corners to allow smooth up-down line movement for fore-and-aft jib lead adjustment, as on Palfrey\u2019s jib lead system. Or, use the car in a more traditional fore-and-aft jib car alignment by tying a Harken Carbo block there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

While the 13mm system is mostly used for jib tracks, Harken is also producing an up-sized version of the 13mm car, one that will fit a 22mm track, which is used for main traveller systems on E Scows, Etchells and similar-sized boats. Like its smaller sibling, it\u2019s very light\u2014a just 4 ounces.  Current prices are: 13mm car ($135.50) and  22mm car ($199.95) at Harken<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s always cool when a sailboat hardware company can be nimble\u2014recognizing a need, quickly tooling up and starting production, all within a few months. Case in point is Harken\u2019s new 13mm ball-bearing car, which became available this past April. \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Dave Powilson","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20210517","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"155","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"It\u2019s always cool when a sailboat hardware company can be nimble\u2014recognizing a need, quickly tooling up and starting production, all within a few months. Case in point is Harken\u2019s new 13mm ball-bearing car, which became available this past April.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"OT7TLXEIDFDWXNZ6T5CSLH67OY","arc_website_url":"story\/gear\/harkens-all-soft-tie-jib-cars\/","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":0,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[165,1704,1092,177],"class_list":["post-70054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gear","tag-gear","tag-hardware","tag-jib-trim","tag-racing"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}