Badly repaired broken battens being mentioned remind me of an Oxford race Alec and I did. I got tossed off the boat and there was a resultant capsize. Turned out a batten broke, and at Oxford we realized we didn't have a spare for the race back the next day. We didn't have any resin or cloth to repair it. So we figured we'd splint it with some stick and tape. Where to find stick... Went to the general store, bought frozen Key Lime Pie on a Stick, ate them, used the Popsicle sticks to splint the batten. Worked so well we forgot about it. Sailed the rest of the season that way. Wasn't until we were going through the gear for the following season that we rediscovered our little repair...