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General Boats, located in Edenton, N.C., sells a trailerable, cruising sailboat known as the Rhodes 22. The company developed a mechanism to effortlessly lift a heavy outboard motor up and down the sailboat transom so that anyone would be able to perform the action while still monitoring heavy bow traffic.

Various bearing solutions were examined, but were too expensive, didn’t rotate properly or produced too much noise. The company then looked to build an electrically operated vertical lift.

The company chose iglide® J bearings for the wheels because they would rotate when subjected to the torque pressure of the offset motor, and used tires to eliminate friction between the wheel and the aluminum tracks. Using iglide J enabled the wheel assemblies to rotate freely with no noise.

Stan Spitzer, owner of General Boats, is pleased with iglide J.

“Enter igus® bearings,” said Spitzer. “The result was spectacular … sailing anyone?”

General Boats also found a use for iglide J on another product. The results were top notch.

The mast of a sailboat must be lowered and removed at the end of each voyage. Large boats have systems in which the sail is rolled inside the mast, which also enables sailors to unfurl only as much sail as necessary for the current weather conditions. However, this is very high in cost and can be more expensive than the sailboat itself.

While similar in design to the high-end systems, the system developed by General Boats is much less costly due to the bearing arrangement for the internal furling tube.

A rotating tube was placed in two plastic doughnuts; however, any resistance (dirt, dust etc.) would translate the force pulling out the sail to a force causing the tube to bend in toward the slot partially up the mast. The more force placed trying to un-jam it, the more locked it became. Sever lubrication was the only solution.

The company enlarged the holes and inserted two iglide bearings to fit loosely in the doughnuts. Now all the pressure applied when pulling out the sail is applied to rotating the tube and it won’t lock.

“The system works flawlessly and with a bonus feature," Spitzer said. "As far as we can see, no maintenance is ever needed. Our IMF main sail furling system [with iglide bearings] is the major reason why buyers choose a Rhodes 22 over the competition.”