Hunter 450 Battens protrude

[Chuck Cohen]

We have 5 horizontal battens in our old Dacron cruising sail. The sail is in the shop for a variety of routine repairs. The battens slide in pockets that have double Velcro closures. However, once closed the covered battens protrude with the folded closure tabs about 1.75-2.00" aft of the leeching edge of the sail. Doesn't seem right to me. When raising the sail these protruding spots inevitably get hung up on the aft most lazyjack lines.

It seems that either the battens aren't seated properly in their pockets at the luff or they were made a tad too long in the first place. Has anyone else had to cope with this? Thoughts appreciated. Of course, I could bring the lazyjacks forward to the mast until the sail is up then tighten them up, but that doesn't seem to me to be the way things should work.

Chuck

 

[Rich Stidger]

I had the same issue with my original UK sails on my h40.5. The most likely causes are:
1. The battens are not fully seated in the pockets and/or the mast slug hardware. I found that I had to fully seat the battens with a LOT of force. A technique that helped for me was to bring the first velcro flap over the end of the batten and push hard with the heel of my hand while pulling the end of the flap over the batten. But I still had 3/4 to 1" sticking out on a couple of the battens.
2. If you had SailCare condition the sails, they may have shrunk ever so slightly. That was my experience, YMMV.

If all else fails, I would cut the excess off the batten and call it a day.

 

[Gunni]

Chuck, that is so wrong it is illegal in 6 states
Once you are certain that the battens are properly seated into your batt cars on the mast your battens should be flush with the leech and your batten tabs fully secured in their batten pockets.

 

[DougM]

The battens in my mainsail were constantly catching on the lazy jacks even though they were fully seated in the pockets. The sail had pockets sewn into the tabs covering the batten ends and a push stick provided to help seat the tabs. That extra inch or so wasn't doing anything useful, so I just cut it off on the offending battens and reinstalled the vinyl tip cover.

 

[Ron20324]

Of course you have rubber caps on both ends of the battens???