the mesh is a woven black plastic material. I had to use a fair bit of muscle to pull it out of the tracks when I removed it. Once started I kept pulling and out it came. Trying to get it to feed back into the slots has been hell with one person pulling on the bolt rope and the other with pliers pulling the material inline with the track, an inch at a time, one side of one hull and then on the other.
I gave up in disgust and sheer exhaustion and now each side is partially in the slides along the bows.
I tried surfboard wax & aerosol spray lubricants, but nothing worked, I just got greasy hands which made it harder to pull. we undid the bolts for the main and front beams and tried to flex the bows in to reduce the mount of stretch but that didn't work.. the only thing i can think of is rying to heat the tramp up to expand it more.