Some people have suggested that I should add full battens to my full roach main nonfurling main,I do not race,what difference would I notice for day sailing and longer cruising trips. nick
Full battens or partial battens
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Mixed Bag
Staying with what you have is always one option. Full battens are great for light air, reefing, and motorsailing. They are a pain to raise and drop and cost more. Doyle (on this site) recommends a hybrid with full top and partial lowers. That is what we did on an O'Day 27 to carry more roach and it worked well. The Hunter Legend 40.5 I now have came with full battens and that is what we stayed with, but changed to tapered carbon battens. Rick D.
Staying with what you have is always one option. Full battens are great for light air, reefing, and motorsailing. They are a pain to raise and drop and cost more. Doyle (on this site) recommends a hybrid with full top and partial lowers. That is what we did on an O'Day 27 to carry more roach and it worked well. The Hunter Legend 40.5 I now have came with full battens and that is what we stayed with, but changed to tapered carbon battens. Rick D.
Nick: Daysailing or cruising, you probably would not notice any difference. Personally, I like the partials battens because they seem to make it easier for me to shape the sail but maybe that is because I'm an old seaman and that is what I'm used to. with that said, I would have to leave it to the sail maker types to explain the difference. In Oct, I raced in the Cataina 30 National regatta in San Fran. The boat we were on had a brand new full batten main. We came in second and the boat that came in 1st had partial battens - we were close but we could not edge him out. I was the mainsheet trimmer and I was never satisfied with power I was getting out of the sail and I worked the blazes out of the controls.
full batten sdjustments
My recently acquired H34 has full battens with buckles(?) near the luff at each batten, apparently so they can be adjusted. Any advise on how and when to adjust them, can this be done when racing, and what is the effect on speed? Norm
My recently acquired H34 has full battens with buckles(?) near the luff at each batten, apparently so they can be adjusted. Any advise on how and when to adjust them, can this be done when racing, and what is the effect on speed? Norm
Full Batten Adjustments
Norm: Lets talk about the purpose of battens. They provide rigidity to the leech of the mainsail. The luff gets its rigidity from the mast and the foot gets its rigidity from the boom. Without battens, the leech has no rigidity and it would be very difficult to maintain the shape of the sail and control draft depth without them. It is not possable to adjust the battens while under sail. The effect they have on speed is that you would have zero speed without them.
Norm: Lets talk about the purpose of battens. They provide rigidity to the leech of the mainsail. The luff gets its rigidity from the mast and the foot gets its rigidity from the boom. Without battens, the leech has no rigidity and it would be very difficult to maintain the shape of the sail and control draft depth without them. It is not possable to adjust the battens while under sail. The effect they have on speed is that you would have zero speed without them.
batten tension
The purpose of my question was get advice regarding the tension on full battens. I believe I have seen Corsair F-24s with a similar arrangement, i.e. with buckles at the luff which appear to provide for some adjustment of draft re the tension applied to the battons. Am I reading this right? if so, how do I apply this to sail trim when racing my H34? Thanks. Norm.
The purpose of my question was get advice regarding the tension on full battens. I believe I have seen Corsair F-24s with a similar arrangement, i.e. with buckles at the luff which appear to provide for some adjustment of draft re the tension applied to the battons. Am I reading this right? if so, how do I apply this to sail trim when racing my H34? Thanks. Norm.
Batten Angst
Norm - After trying to get answers to the same question, and experimenting with various tensions on the batten straps for the past year, my conclusion is that batten pre-load is relatively unimportant. After all, a lot of sails have quite a bit of free play, fore and aft, in their batten pockets. Of much greater importance is the stiffness of the battens, especially the top ones, and I'm convinced that many sails are delivered with upper battens that are much to firm for most conditions. Hot-shot racers have several sets of battens for differing wind conditions. Make sure you get good shape at the top of the sail, and if not, use a more flexible batten. If the straps are tensioned up, you will find the sail has a hard time "snapping" through when the boat is tacked in light air, so my rule is just tight enough to hold the batten in place.
Norm - After trying to get answers to the same question, and experimenting with various tensions on the batten straps for the past year, my conclusion is that batten pre-load is relatively unimportant. After all, a lot of sails have quite a bit of free play, fore and aft, in their batten pockets. Of much greater importance is the stiffness of the battens, especially the top ones, and I'm convinced that many sails are delivered with upper battens that are much to firm for most conditions. Hot-shot racers have several sets of battens for differing wind conditions. Make sure you get good shape at the top of the sail, and if not, use a more flexible batten. If the straps are tensioned up, you will find the sail has a hard time "snapping" through when the boat is tacked in light air, so my rule is just tight enough to hold the batten in place.
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