Bill Roberts recently posted a response on the old forum that got me thinking. (Before anyone starts in on me about how using someone's name is in poor taste, let me say that I have nothing but admiration and respect for Bill. I love my SC19!)
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<br>The jist of his statement was (I'm paraphrasing..) "beach cats shouldn't have rf jibs because they're not stiff enough without battens, only low-aspect keelboat jibs should be on furlers"
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<br>ok, but a bunch of us love the flexibility and convenience of our furlers, so maybe there's a way to have the best of both worlds, or at least a compromise.... I didn't read the article very carefully, but in the latest Sailing World there's a 60' unstayed-rig singlehander that looks to have VERTICAL battens in the jib. seems like a good idea to me. they stabilize the luff, and they roll up on the furler. I'm sure they cause some funky disturbance of the airflow, but if this guy's got the setup on his multimilliondollar circumnavigator, it can't be all bad!
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<br>I'd love to hear comments from some of you sailshape gurus!<br><br>

The I20 jib has vertical battens (parallel to the forestay, maybe 30 deg. angle to the leech), which allow the jib to roll around the forestay in a very tight roll. The battens are perfectly aligned when the jib is rolled and cause no problem.<br><br>While I'm sure a fully battened jib may be the optimal for boats with a big jib, the I20 has a small "blade" jib, much smaller than the P19 or H20. The vertical jib battens seem to do the job here. Since the boat has a spinnaker, you don't need a large jib trying to be a crude spinnaker downwind. Also, for a given sail area upwind, it is more efficient to put more of the area into the square-top main (look at the A-cats), and less area in the jib. This also makes the jib easier to handle (both sailing and rigging) than a large jib.<br><br>BTW, I once crewed on an F31 that had a full-batten mylar reacher. This monster was something like a 30' luff and about 20' foot. It worked really well when we used it, especially in light air. The problem was, we almost never used it because it was such a pain in the @ss to get up or down! If you haven't tried it, it's quite an experience trying to roll a sail with 20' battens and get it into the sail bag without falling off of the boat or breaking one of those $$$ battens!<br><br>Sail fast and have fun,<br>Alan Thompson<br>I20 - San Diego<br><br>

The Smyth team or Randy as some would say has designed a RF batten head sail. We all know that Randys sails will give only the best performance possible. So if you think your RF jib is not what it could be contact Randy(early in the morning or he'll be sailing) and he can build a sail for you that will change your mind. <br><br>