When the sailing hardware company can flexibly identify needs, quickly equip and start production, all of this will be completed within a few months, which is always cool. A typical example is Harken's new 13mm ball bearing car, which was launched in April this year.

As an evolution of the Harken 2700 series of small boats, the new 2767 does not have any stainless steel hardware except for the ball bearing retainer-no shackles, pins or rings. Everything is soft. In fact, there are only three main parts: an aluminum body, a ball bearing, and a two-ball bearing cage. As a result, the weight of this car is only 1.48 ounces, which is surprising.

The design is inspired by Adam Palfrey, who has been using 2702 cars on the swing arm track he designed for the Etchells class ("A Sheeting Angle Solution"). For Palfrey, they are good, although not perfect, because he has to dig out a small part of aluminum in each car to make the up and down lines work without scratches, and they also stamped stainless steel handles with a little square corners -Good, but not the best choice for spliced ​​traveler control wires.

Enter longtime Etchells sailor Chris Larson. "Start with him," Palfrey said. "Chris knows how much work must be done to make the original car work."

In turn, Larson pulled Harken's Oakley Jones into the loop. Jones said, "I looked at what Dog was doing and thought,'We can do better.' I sent a picture of the Dog modified car to one of our engineers and said:'Etchells class is currently modifying us The 2702 car. Except that it doesn’t look as good as we wanted, the wire entering it rubs where it was milled out, and the pin eventually bends from where the wire surrounds it.’”

"Within a few days, Oakley completed the 3D drawing," Palfrey said. "About three weeks later, he called and said,'Do you want to keep buying some?' The speed at which they turned things around was impressive."

"Fortunately, we are not starting from scratch," Jones said, "so we can basically adjust the 2702 car to produce a new car. We removed all unnecessary aluminum as much as possible and rounded all the edges. "An additional benefit of this car is that there is no plastic end cap. Old versions of things will deteriorate in the sun, eventually failing and releasing the bearings.

The result is an elegant car. The traveler control wire passes through the circular elliptical grooves at both ends, eliminating the need for tangs and providing a more rounded surface for the control wire. Splice a 1/8 to 3/16 inch Spectra or attach a luggage tag, or use a soft connection block (such as one of Harken's Carbo T2 block series) for a 2-to-1 setting. Three shallow grooves at the end of each ellipse lock the soft lace loop in place. "It looks great and saves customization work, which is always expensive, and it is very suitable for this job," Palfrey said.

The center slot has rounded corners to allow smooth up and down line movement for front and rear arm guidance adjustments, just like on Palfrey's arm guidance system. Or, by tying the Harken Carbo block there, use the car in a more traditional front and rear arm alignment.

Although the 13mm system is mainly used for cantilevered crawlers, Harken has also produced an enlarged version of the 13mm car, which is suitable for 22mm crawlers, and is used in the main passenger system on E Scows, Etchells and similarly sized ships. Just like its small Like brothers, it is very light-only 4 ounces. The current prices are: Harken's 13mm car ($135.50) and 22mm car ($199.95).

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