Anonymous wrote:

Garry Pick wrote:

A couple of shots taken by a friend.

Pretty, Looks like a nice place to be.

Looks like good friends to have, but not need ;)

Garry Pick wrote:

A couple of shots taken by a friend.

Pretty, Looks like a nice place to be.

Looks like good friends to have, but not need ;)

Anonymous wrote:

Gary wrote:Annie you have access to T6 alloy, if you can afford it I would suggest you use that instead.

No I haven't: I bent one batten quite badly and one slightly.  That's one of the reasons I don't want to go there. And we can't buy T6 here (I was lucky with Fantail).

Without wishing to sound holier than thou, there is a Climate Crisis going on, and I'm already stomping around on a huge footprint.  Anything I can do to reduce it can only be a good thing.

And - not being self-righteous, now - I hate the noise of them against the mast, the fact that they make it so difficult to get a hitch to grip and end up requiring hardware instead of simple holes and string.

David, I was thinking of putting a layer of glass and epoxy on the bamboo: on the other hand, most people in NZ are only too happy to cut some down for you if you ask nicely!  I've already got mine and they are slowly turning from green to yellow in the shed, with twice as many as I need, so that I can select more carefully.

Gary, my apologies: I've hi-jacked your thread.  And I'm so pleased to see you out sailing again after having had more issues that you'd have chosen, with Redwing.

Anonymous wrote:

I have been considering the batten pockets on my planned sail.  For various reasons, (not in the least that they are free and readily-available) I am planning to use bamboo battens myself.  Unlike aluminium, they do not come in standard sizes nor are they  perfectly straight and they tend to be tapered.  That being so, batten pockets would have to be a pretty loose fit, which would mean some would fit better than others.

On Badger, instead of sewing pockets, we used about half a dozen straps, which made it a lot easier to change the batten at sea (you just had to locate each strap, poke the batten through, tie it at one end and then hoist sail up far enough to tie the other end.  Much easier than trying to stretch the whole, reefed sail out.)  I was wondering whether to extrapolate this concept: make the straps each, say 50mm wide and then line them with Velcro.  This way each strap could be held snugly around the varying widths of the bamboos.  It is quite difficult to force Velcro apart - it really works by pulling one end and 'ripping' it open; if it did tend to open, a couple of stitches taken on either side would suffice.

I'd be interested in comments.  Am I worrying too much about the bamboos being a loose fit in the batten pockets?

Annie,

a few comments, first with regard to bamboo, choose ripe yellow stems as these are harder, stronger and crack less when drying out. On Arcadian I used green stems and these were gone in a couple of years. I would also advise wrapping them with 12 oz (400 gsm) fiberglass cloth set in epoxy. This will add quite a bit of strength and will protect the battens and prolong their life almost indefinitely. A double layer of 6 oz tape 6 inches wide spirally wound around with a 50% overlap does just as well and is easier to fair up after the resin sets.

With regard to batten pockets, on Gypsy Rose I stitched the pockets on in sections, leaving a gap for the batten parrell attachment and another half way aft of that and I left the ends open. This has worked well so far and allows the batten to be slide in to the forward part of the pocket and then be backed into the aft part. Much easier than trying to thread them in from the end. I do not think that being slightly loose in the pocket has any effect on performance.

David.