It's all on our Help page, Gary :-)

Gary King wrote:I should have added to my post that our one piece sails were still sewn in a room not much larger than a single panel. We had to take the bundle out in the street to lay it out, and that was only to see what she looked like.

Hi Gary, you forgot to click on "My directory profile" at the top of your profile page before copying the URL to your photo, so the link in the above post doesn't work.  Here is a link that will work.

I have to agree it's not as simple as first perceived, and simple is the best. And Gary thanks I will have a good look at Arne's method.

Reading your comments it's clear other people have tried and like the idea, so maybe there's something in it.

O.K. so I'm not giving up just yet, found these profiles on the web:

http://www.octanorm.de/Pages/Products/ProductBrowser2.aspx?dep=VMS&chid=23&pfid=121

They come in lengths of max 7 meters, I don't know the price/grade and strength of the profiles so would first have to find out. It's possible to insert an extra tube in some of the profiles to strengthen them, very interesting.


  

sako klinker wrote:My thinking is to find alum tube with the two "tracks" extruded into the tube, so no need for tracks riveted on to the battens, and not use rope but the luff tape used for roller furler sails. This way the sails and battens or not much heavier then normal, and the panels should slide in very smoothly. I love silicon spray.

We looked for tube of the sort you suggest, i.e. 'grooved', but couldn't locate of the size we needed or at a sensible price. Attaching tracks was our solution. Well you have half a dozen options, Sako. Good here, innit?

Yeh Mate - nother Kiwi here, don't listen to those Aussies they don't know what theyr'e talking about, well apart from Gary and Graham. As for those poms and all the others, well we all know that real life is 'down under' here in the colonies!!

Actually what I really wanted to say was keep it simple if you can. Having sailed a junk rig boat now for almost 7 years including some offshore cruising I would go with a cambered panel sail (of whatever method suits) and keep the battens in pockets. Certainly the method we used to build Footprints sail has worked well so far. My sail is 6.5 metres through the cord, (David Tyler's close to 7m from memory) so we know all about sewing lots of seam length. With my first sail I never had to take the battens out once the sail was assembled for the first time, and similarly with my new sail, once I had all the battens sorted and finally installed I have not needed to take them out and that is almost 2 years go and includes over 2000 miles of ocean crossings.  

It should also be noted that on both Footprint's and Tysytie's sails not only are the battens in pockets but the yards and booms as well. So far this is working out well and while the method may involve a couple of extra hours of sail making time it produces a much more aerodynamically clean sail (for those of us who are interested in such things).