When NOT to use full length battens?

I have to admit, Gonzo, the relevance of those links escapes me.

Could you explain how those links relate to the claim that fully battened rigs cause masts to be lost during gybes?

 

CT, not just break, but break at the gooseneck...

I have to admit that Gonzo and Paul do add some flavor to this post... you never know, something useful might surface.

That aside, I want to thank everyone for their input, as it has been a good education, both from the theory side as well as the practical experience side.

My overall feeling is, at least for my new design 17 footer, which is not an all out racer, that I can best go for having the top one or two battens as full length, and the lower one or two shorter.

I read somewhere that the right length is "two times the roach plus a bit" which, incidently, with my sail, makes the top two battens full length.

Key hardware aspect is to have the right track... I saw a number of types mentioned, but would like to get some links to pictures and manufactures of the best to use..

Thanks,

Grant

 

Looks like something useful DID surface.

If the crazy claims by Gonzo were not contradicted by people who have actual knowledge you might have concluded that using two top full battens would break your mast. Sadly your project would have suffered for it.

 

Paul B: I made a post just for you. Where are you when we need you?

 

Not sure what planet some people are living on

I am a sail maker and designer at Banks Sails Tampa. About 90% of the cruising mainsails we make are full battened. Sometimes we add a little roach, sometimes the same roach, occassionally we reduce the roach... it depends on the boat and how the customer uses it. We have even made fully battened sails with NO roach (for reduced flogging and easier stowing). 100% satisfaction, no one has broken their mast during a jibe, and not a single instance of a forestay loosening during a tack... The only times we have advised against full battens is with the old-style external metal track... then the slides do tend to stick and jam with full length battens.

 

I agree with Koch. I've made dozens of cruising and cruiser/racing mains (as well as many laminate racing roachy mains) and we've never had a customer complain.
We'd always ensure the lower full battens in a cruising main ran parallel to a reef and also if we could, we'd land the ends of the batten on luff and leech reef patches to help distribute the load and also to make the sail super easy to reef.
We'd also extend the head patch reinforcements down into the top batten at the leech at the very least as well.
You'd be amazed how much simpler putting in a reef is when the reef slab has a batten constraining it near the reef points, it settles the whole sail down really nicely when the luff and leech are under reduced or no tension.
If you have a batten in the loose sail you are trying to flake up on the boom when reefing, it is even better again, grab batten and pull it up over the boom, instant flake! If you have lazyjacks, loosen halyard and watch it do it for itself.
We also made the vast majority of cruising fully battened mains with slugs or slides, no failures there either. Decent reinforcing patches at the luff and leech end, plus a good batten pocket end (through bolted in design) eliminated any issues. A slug or slide sewn right into the batten end and one immediately above it eliminated any issues with any wear. We favoured flat battens in cruising sails rather than rod or tubular battens, they last a lot longer and are very forgiving with regards wrapping around shrouds etc, plus they are flexible enough to deflect if caught under say a reef line.
As with any sail with slugs or slides, nice tight webbing holding the hardware on is far more important in eliminating sticking than what that hardware is sewn to....
Put a fully battened main on a boom with a simple two point lazyjack system and you have a ridiculously easy to handle, very hard to damage sail.
As for exorbitant cost, adding full battens typically added around 10% to teh cost of a sail, hardly a hefty premium....
So, as with anything, if you use the technology and materials appropriately, you can have an excellent sail. If you get a cheapo hack job done by someone who has no clue, it will suck.

Regards, Andrew.

 

Wow, Koch, Typhoon, thank you for those replies... very useful, detailed, but practical info I and other can use... just what this forum is all about!
Grant

 

So you've had no problems with extra wear on the track of wooden masts?

 

Anyone in Florida with a wooden mast has a lot more to worry about than battens. Varnishing 3 or 4 times a year due to intense UV, and checking for rot, keeps them too busy to sail. Only wooden masts we see are on small sailing craft. We either use no battens or sewn in battens on small craft to keep the weight down and make the rig and sail easy to drop and stow into a bag.

 

That doesn't answer my question.

 

If you're referring to external metal tracks, I answered that above. We don't recommend full length battens be used with external metal track and slides. They often jam when raising and lowering the sail, this is even a bit of problem without full length battens. Best results from metal track is reusing the customer's old slides on the new sail and having regular battens. With internal tracks we generally use Allslip slides on bigger sails (over 30' LOA) and Delrin slides on smaller boats. Nylon doesn't last long in the sun here. And webbing on the slides is the only way to go, as Typhoon said. Occasionally we do a strong track system (Tides Marine) installation. This is a tough plastic track (teflon?) that sides up the slot in mast, and uses HD metal slides. Very low friction, and much cheaper and easier to install than Harken, etc.

 

Agree with plastic slides. You'd be amazed what is available in plastic (nylon) slides these days. Personally, I would replace slides on any sail every couple of years as maintenence, full batten or not.
Stainless steel slides are also good on larger battens as far as strength goes, but do tend to hang up more often that nylon.
You can also buy some really nice, long alloy slugs from Bainbridge that work very well at batten ends, their length and rigidity make them very useful in this area.
As for timber masts, well, as Koch said, it depends on the track.External tracks would depend very much on how they were fastened to the mast, how close the fastenings were etc. I've seen some pretty rugged stainless and brass tracks on masts and they wouldn't worry me. Even some of the alloy tracks are tough.
If you follow correct hoisting procedures, the battens should not force themselves into the track at all, Once hoisted and drawing, the battens cause no additional loads to a track that a fully set conventional main doesn't cause, this assumes a typical very mild roach, which is what you'd find on a traditional yacht or cruiser. The battens used are very important here and they shouldn't be stiff at all, just stiff enough to support the roach.
The flat fibreglass battens we used ranged from 30 to 50mm wide and 3-4mm thick. They'd form around stays etc downwind fairly well, no chance of breaking and definitely no chance of loading up a mast track.
To give you an example of how flexible these battens are, they would arrive to us when shipped, a 15m length coiled to around 1.3m diameter.

Regards, Andrew.

 

So hang on, 17 foot boat... How big is this rig? It sounds as if all you should just have ordinary plastic end caps and the sail with a conventional luff rope like 99% of the rest of the many thousands of rigs of that sort of size in the world. Also at that sort of size I wouldn't consider anything other than full length battens, if for no other reason then the simple ease of rolling the main round the battens for storage at the end of the day.

 

Ok, so that agrees with my initial statement that full size battens do not work as a retrofit on all rigs.