After years of dealing with the 40-year-old track on the mast of his Allied Seabreeze 35, SAIL’s Andrew Howe installs a track and slide system from Tides Marine. Although the project sounds complicated, it proved to be a surprisingly straightforward one, and the results are more than worth the effort. The key is to take your time, follow the instructions and—as always—be sure you measure twice so you can cut just once. It also helps to have and extra pair of hands to slide the external track into the old groove, something that should not be too hard to come by in a typical boatyard, even a boatyard as noisy as this one! Coupled with a new full-batten main, raising and lowering the mainsail will now be a piece of cake.