Hi everybody,

today on my inter 18 we broke from the top down 6 - in words six - of the main fiberfoam battens and I don't know why. The battens are 11 years old and the situation was: dreaming helmsman gibed, boom kicked cap and glasses off his head, dude almost blind tried to see where the sh*t was, big bad puff meanwhile threw boat down. O.K. up to here nothing special. But after righting the boat and starting sailing again we saw the six broken battens and were totally clueless how that happenend. The capsize was really slow cause we were like stopping action in the gybe to see were my items are and nobody fell into the sail.

What do you think is it the age of the batten foam? I found some pieces of it in the batten bags looking like litte black stones and: almost as hard as stone. For example the top batten which is very short and standing like 45° up from my opinion never has to carry heavy load or pressure and it broke... I just don't understand it. Hm.

Thanks for your comments.

You should also replace the helmsman.
All plastics are weaken by UV light, most plastics suffer from fatigue, so yes, sail battens can be too old, not only fiberfoams. However a bad gybe in high winds can also ruin your battens (e.g. if the sail crashes in the shrouds.

Cheers,

Klaus

I've broken battens before in a capsize if the wind tries to flip the sail up around the mast while the boat is on it's side.

You mean Fibrefoam the brand or just foam battens in general? Some of the early foam battens were very brittle even new. One of the USA manufactured brands supplied as standard equipment by one of the large manufacturers used to break on hitting the water even in a mild capsize.
I've used Fibrefoams for 20+ years and can only recall one or maybe two breaking in that time. A lot depends on how any batten is stored over that many years. Sun and heat are the enemy - as they are for the sail. Also battens won't survive if bent around 90 degrees with force, although that seems less likely with your top battens breaking.

Cheers

As I myself discovered last month, a chinese gybe in breeze will break any battens. I was sailing between races at the Mayor's Cup this June and failed to sheet in during a gybe. The boom went up, the sail folded, and I snapped 4 battens (three of which were tapered fiberglass that had survived 10 years of racing). I didn't even capsize - but "snap" "snap" "snap" "snap".

Regards,
Eric

They have a sticker "Performance Battens" and probably were delivered with the sail by Performance Sails.

Whatever will happen in capsizing what also more or less means losing control the top four battens on my boat can't touch the shrouds because they are above them.

That sounds like the dodgy ones - no good even when new. You could replace them with Fibrefoams - called Catbattens in USA for sale on this site. You'll never look back.

Cheers

Uhhh I see. I've ordered a complete set of battens this morning before your last reply and guess which is the only brand that dealer is selling: Fiberfoam Catbattens

Hi,

The batten technology has come a long way since the 1980's ... basically then you had the Hobie "Saturn" fiberglass battens and the "foam" battens used in the Nacra's and Prindles at that time. The "Saturn" battens were/are basically indestructable but must be "shaped" by filing/sanding/grinding ... a itchie job. The foam battens of that era could give you a nice sail shape but .... very delicate ... hence the cry "Don't land in the sail ... please don't land in the ... oh sh-t..."

The "Rath" battens (blue/white filler) made in South Africa were the first epoxy battens that were almost indestructable ... you just couldn't get them when you were not allowed to import them anymore to the USA in the early 90's.

But since the late 90's on you can get epoxy battens that are very durable (gray epoxy/black foam)... I had Tony Arrends/RacerX Sails measure my P-19MX sail and order me a set of battens for it.

Here's my tale of ...

We doing the PSA Overnight Regatta ... after turning around Sandy Point Light and headed downwind back up the bay we put the spin up ... passing through the monohull fleet like they were bi-planes and we are the jet ... big micro-burst .... literly drives my P-19 under water in a blink and over we go .... so here we are over on our side trying to gather up the spin and get it in it's tramp bag (no "girlie" snuffer for my boat ....) .... and I'm watching this A1 monohull bearing down on us .... and that monohull with this big spin up is pushing a bow-wave that is spilling up and over onto the foredeck of this big boat ... and as they pass us two things happened ... first the bow-wave hit us just rolling down our mast .... snap, snap, snap, snap .... every batten except the bottom one .... then the hail " ... Do you require assistence ..." My reply ..... " No, I don't think I need your assistence" .... *##^*# .... you've done enough already, D-mn it .....

We were done ... time to head for the beach ...

.... But that ment we were safely making nacho's w/ melted cheese over the campfire, drinking cold beers that evening when the THUNDERSTORMS hit w/ more lightning strikes then I could count all over the Chesapeake Bay ....

Harry
H18Mag/P19MX
Fleet 54/CRAC

i find it not so hard to repair the 29year old oem foam battens in my nacra 5.2 sail when i bust them

something like a 5inch strip of 300gm cross weave glass wetted out onto the sanded batten, then a 3.5inch strip, then a 2.5inch strip

let set and trim edges

beats trying to order them from over seas anyway