First I have to admit to trolling this site for several years. Always found it very informative. My question, I broke a foam batten in my 5.2 sail. I have a full set of
fiberglass battens leftover from my Hobie 16(they will need to be cut to fit the 5.2) Will there be a noticable difference in performance going from the foam to glass. I will replace the broken foam batten(maybe all), just can't afford to right now.

I can't imagine there would be a noticeable performance difference unless they are extremely different. Also might make a little difference as to where it is on the sail (top or bottom) but whether it is noticeable- probably not

Hi,

if you bend one of the remaining foam battens and compare the stiffness (the curvature) with that one of the glass batten and you see a significant difference, then it will slightly degrade the performance of your boat.

Regarding complete replacement: If you have a workshop, you can build foam battens your self. For my battens I took a wood strip as core and laminated uni directional glass on both sides. The epoxy resins protects the wood from moisture. It was about 3$-4$ per batten and works fine since two years.

Cheers,

Klaus

Hi Klaus,

I always heard that wood/glass battens would be far to stiff for good battens. Your experience with wooden battens are good? As your profession is aerodynamics, I suppose they better be good..

I made some solid glass battens for a local 29er team last fall. Not class legal, but the customized battens performed very good for them. Building solid glass battens was easy and making them fit the sail was quite easy.

Hi Rolf,

From a structural point of view, you could make battens from any (usual) material and the stiffness is equilized by the thickness of the battens. I started with pure epoxy/wood battens, which was as soft as the original battens, but they tend to break, so I put the glass on. Then they were significantly stiffer (because I was too lazy to plane the wood - they were already painted with epoxy), but to my surprise, it worked fine. Keep in mind, that this was for a Dart 18 which has a very weak downhaul (2:1 or 3:1), and the possibilities to flaten the sail are limited. Unfortunately I have not measured performance before and after the usage of the new battens, so I must rely on personal judgement: My personal impression was, that it is faster in all conditions apart from light wind / downwind. The balance of the boat and sheating forces are improved significantly. Other people told me, they are impressed how high I can point into the wind without dagger boards.
To check the stiffness of the battens, I put a lot of tell tales all over my sail. So I can tell you that I don't have too less camber. Actually the true camber includes the mast, and the Dart has a wing mast (sorry no F16 invention <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />). My conclusion is that the original battens/sail had to much camber and stiff battens repair that problem.
Second application was on the classic Tornado of my friend. Again there is the problem with the downhaul (6:1 or 4:1, if I remember correctly, with too much friction anyway). It looks flat with the new battens, but we had also changed the prebend in the mast. We sailed only two times (and not bad) in this configuration, so it is too early to make a conclusion here.
After two years, all battens on the Dart are still fine apart of one which broke after my crew jumped into it.
That's my batten story.

However, I have seen sails with soft battens which are as flat as I only can dream of it. I have not fully understood the relation between downhaul, battens and camber, but I guess, the stiffer the battens the less downhaul is required.
Coming back to my first message, you can make wood/glass battens as soft as foam battens. 'Wood/glass battens are too stiff' is a myth, which might be good for your budget.

Cheers,

Klaus

There are plenty of used foam battens out there, they were used on the P-16, P-18, P18-2, P-19 and almost all of the nacras, if you are looking for only one or two, you should be able to find them with little trouble. The difference that is probably the most is weight. With fiberglass battens the weight aloft is quite abit more. Just let people know the area you are from and you should be able to replace the foam batten pretty quickly.

Part of the reason I was asking about the Fibergalss battens as replacements, is that it is a 2-3 hour drive(Austin or Houston,Tx) to the nearest Nacra parts dealer. I may be able to find a foam batten locally, but not very likely.Not many Nacras or Prindles in this part of the world, Lots of Hobie's however. I have noticed the glass battens tend to shed glass fibers, which I am concerned about as my sail is relitively new. Making a single batten may be an option I am willing to look at. My other option may be to mix the battens, Foam & Fglass. Anyone ever tried this. Thanks to all for the input.

put your battens on a cooking scale and measure their bending loads, write it on the side of the batten

if the solid glass battens are very close in deflection weight to the foam battens then you can mix them with little change of sail shape

if they are vastly different then you can still mix them but the sail shape will be poor and sail inefficient

which batten did you break on your 5.2?

i broke the number 8 batten on my 5.2. so mixed a little polyester resin up, cut out a couple of bits of glass cloth, stuck it all together and when cured the shape and bend characteristics were almost the same as an unbroken batten

from top to bottom mine were

6.6lb, 3.7lb, 3.7lb, 4lb, 4lb, 3.2lb, 2.8lb, 3.4lb, 3.5lb and 3lb

which is a little strange as they should vary smoothly from top to bottom. think i can swap 7 for 10 but am stuck with 4 and 5

i'll test them all again in the spring when i've finished trying to untwist them and MAY take a little off the top and bottom of the two 4lb battens to soften them up a little

BUT until you measure what you have you won't really get any idea of what you need

Here's the thing - you want to make sure that the solid batten will keep the sail shape consistent. In other words - it needs to have similar stiffness/bendiness in the rights places.

The good news is that you can make the solid batten more bendy in specific places by carefully sanding on both sides.

The bad news is that you can't really add stiffness.

On the assumption that the solid batten is mostly as stiff as needed (usually toward the roach of the sail), try this -

Put the battens in the sail, normal tension, then pull the boat over on its side, set your downhaul at your minimum setting (just getting the wrinkles out). Put the solid batten in, and see if you can get the sail shape to consistent through the area of the solid batten. Try adjusting how tight it is in the pocket, but avoid jamming it. Pull the batten out and sand in the area that needs bendiness, try again.

Years ago on a P 18-2 I once had, it originally came with a Dacron sail, and Fiberglass battons.

I took the whole set, and with a belt sander, tapered both sides form about 1/2 way forward, so they were thinner at the luff. This worked great for sail shape!

Then, my next set were mylar and foam battens, which come tapered.

True, the FB battens weigh more, but are more durable, and less $$. If you're not racing much, I'd go with a FB hand tapered. Of course the price of one foam batten isn't much either, and there are sailors with spares lying around.

Isn't Rockport fairly near Corpus? Look there man.

Corpus is 35 miles, your right no big deal. Until you try & find Cat Parts. Than the standard answer is Sure We can get them ,from the Sailboat store in Austin, or one of the suppliers in Houston. I do have a complete set of Fglass battens from My long dead Hobie. Saturday looks like rain, so I'll get the sander & scale out and get busy. Or if the
wife is up to it, take a road trip to ONE of the Big Cities
and find a Cat parts dealer. In answer to a previous question I broke the #6 batten from the top, right at the point of the deepest draft. I do have enough Fglass battens to fill each pocket, will just have to cut to length & taper. Thanks All for the time & info.

It is dead easy to go to your local grocery store and use the big "people scale" in the front entrance! Publix Supermarkets in Florida anyway. MAnager said it was ok. Bend and Mark them all. If they are going to be cut, you have to hold them at that length and push down.