Gary sheepishly raises his hand. "Um, I drove there a few times and was given a few tours."

According to the factory, the tube is a pulltruded fiberglass tube that is laid into the mold during layup. One of the final steps in building the hull is to cut the groove from the outside of the finished hull. One slip up can mess up a lot of work and this was one of the reasons that the design has been abandoned.

Another problem was the inability to source rope that would arrive from time to time, that would maintain a consistant diameter. This caused some smaller ropes to pull from the groove that was cut to accomodate earlier ropes that arrived in a slightly larger diameter.

GARY

He's already focusing the force on short sections by using the webbing connections between groove and tramp. To use the entire groove uniformly, he'd have to make the tramp as large as it originally was.

GARY

If are going to modify the boat, what not just create a lip out of the top half of the track and drill holes in that to loop some 1/8 amsteel through opposite each tramp loop.

Grind off the bottom half of the track to create the lip.

Way easier than reforming the track.

If the track isnt strong enough, you can add reiforcements to the bottom of the lip, it wont be seen from above and you might be able to get away with a less than perfect gel coat job.

Here's the 3 options I see:
Ranked in order of however I feel like ranking them.

Option 1: Fill the entire slot with epoxy/filler and then put the screws into it just like the newer boats have.

Option 2: Permanently epoxy the rope in place, leaving the webbing loops exposed. This was suggested by Mischa Heemskerk to solve this problem, as well as to stop the leaks that will develop in the track.
Right TJPECO?

Option 3: Use the biggest piece of line you can get into the track for the boltrope.

Option 4: Upgrade! I've got an '06 I'll let go...

I like options 1 and 4 the most.

I think we have a winner here with option 1!!! that one goes under the duh, why didn't I think of that category.

way easier than trying to cut the slot out again. Tyler, just give kathy a call and i'm sure she can hook you up with the new style lacing eyes.

I will respond since what I did worked flawlessly. I used the slugs like Gary posted. I can get the tramp tighter than a snair drum...did I just say that? Man that sounded bad. Seriously, that's what I did and it works. The problem is in two parts: one is that the track flexes some. two is the boltrope will compress some. The slugs eliminate atleast one of the problems in a simple way.

Lee Wicklund/ Team Chums