....and I see the forum gods have granted our wish....thanks
I have been looking in the UK and cant find any UHMW tape for this
If you find a UK suppler / solution please let me know because I am about to recoat the inside of my mast tubeand would like to stop it wearing again if poss
Just as an aside - PTFE sheet is widely available, I recently purchased a small 200mm x 300mm sheet of 1mm thick PTFE from Ebay for the grand sun of £5.50 (including postage). That's enough to cut out at least 13 of the 60mm discs that sit in the mast pot - I just cut the discs out with a strong pair of scissors,
Nigel
HiI have found that the wear strips lock the mast so you cannot gybe freely in light air. Everything is way too tight. I have removed the strips and thrown them in the trash. I keep sand out of the mast step, and spray the inside of the step and the mast itself with McLube. This works incredibly well for gybing, and probably reduces wear. I apply McLube probably every 6th sail or so.
I have found the teflon strips which are sold by APS to be quite effective in reducing the wear on the top-aft and bottom-forward areas of the tube. The strips themselves are about 2 mm thick, so it is an increase of 4 mm to the diameter of the mast - no big deal if you ask me. As for its adverse effect on light air gybing, I have not seen any; but then again, I'm not sure if I could tell the difference. If this is a concern, then I might try some McLube prior to insertion. IMHO the big advantage to using them on an older boat is that the gelcoat is usually gone (worn away) from the bottom-forward part of the mast. The strips will distribute the force to a larger unworn area just above the bottom of the tube. Thus, the larger the area, the lower the force-per-unit-area.
I put the wear strips on a new boat and it locked the mast. I just use McLube, and that's it. Keep the tube clean and McLubed. Boats don't last forever, but it should last long enough.