Hi Linda,

This is a bit late for you sorry...

This padding thing really foxed me when I was converting our Cornish Pilot 30 ANNIE to JR. Luckily I discovered that over my ali tube battens AND batten pockets could be wrestled a length of white plastic plumbing pipe, after cutting a strip about 15mm out of it lengthways, and rounding off corners generously to ease the wrestling. With impact adhesive, to this I stuck, to cover most of the pipe exterior but not quite all, the remains of a cheap camping mat. Onto the mat padding, (more impact glue), was stuck our chosen sail cloth to just short of the edges of the pipe, well overlapping the mat material underneath so disguising the whole contraption so it could hardly be seen against the batten pocket of the same material. So satisfying and the battens were silent against the mast. It also looked alright, the whole plastc/aluminium/polystyrene thing not appealing to me one bit! We have not done very many miles so there is no deterioration, but when I do it again in re-converting our Annie to  JR (she has briefly been back to gaff) I would do the same again but with slightly more durable-looking padding material.. I mentioned this padding of battens in an article I wrote for the Magazine, where I think the were one or two photos.

Thanks for reminding me of this. Although I am not set on a sail design (of course I went and sold our Annie's first junk sail to a member near here which seemed a good idea at the time) our battens will surely need padding!

Pol

Here is what I did to Ingeborgs JR with a hybrid mast and aluminium yard and battens, to reduce chafe:

• 1.      I always use batten pockets at the mast, made of thick pvc. This could be improved even more by making the pockets oversize and then wrap the battens with some ‘paddy’ material (old rags or whatever). Even rubbing contact between an aluminium mast and aluminium batten is no good.
• 2.      The yard is padded with the same pvc material as used in the batten pockets.
• 3.      The batten parrels are of 20mm webbing. This was chosen for another reason, but as a bonus the contact area at the mast will be increased, and thus the contact pressure and chafe reduced.
• 4.      Both the bottom end of the mast lift and the around-the-mast bit of the tack parrel (TP) are now of 50mm webbing, again to increase contact area
• 5.      Any other lines in contact with the mast, like topping lifts, YHP and THP are made of fairly soft and big diameter ropes, again to reduce chafe.

Of course, my boats have seen only a tiny fraction of the miles and waves that Kokachin has. All I can say is that I have never seen any chafe between the battens and the mast, they being of wood or aluminium.

Actually, I have described this in Chapter 7 of  TCPJR.

Arne

Hello

I have a practical question, which I hope you can help me with. 

While Pete is searching the shops & online - I am seeking here a practical advice, based on your experience and knowledge. 

Maybe there is something on the Forums on this already  - but my brief search did not return much + my signal is bad, data plan limited ..

Our battens are 2 inches diameter x  5.5m long,  the main sail is 50 sqm. After 12,000 miles of sailing the paint (2 pack polyurethane ) on Kokachin's wooden masts have been badly damaged by the aluminium battens & some by ropes.

We are going to put some PEX tubing over batten parells but the main chafe is from the aluminium battens. We found some flexible plastic piping (used here for sump pumps) and we looked at some outdoor carpets (not convinced it will work)... We cannot find HDPE thin sheet which worked reasonably well on Oryx. 

Could you recommend something to put around the battens to protect the paint on the mast? Ideally it has to be light weight- as it is me hoisting the main sail! 

What are you using & how well it works / worked?

How did you attach/fix it to the battens - sail?

Would be good to know how big your rig is / how much sailing you've done with it...

We are in Annapolis, heading for Florida to work on the masts in warmer weather.

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

Linda