Jim wrote:
 At the risk of being tarred, feathered and run off the web, I'm going to start another thread: "Are Batten Pockets Really Necessary?"

Jim,

Over the years, many have written to me and suggested alternative ways of joining the batten panels and attaching the battens. Most of these involves nuts-and-bolt solutions, metal grommets or even glue. Those who suggest this have had little or no experience with using a sewing machine and struggle with understanding what a wonderful and time-saving tool it is.

If one is afraid of having a stub of  broken (wooden) batten stuck inside a pocket, then I suggest one makes the pockets in shorter lengths, say of one metre length. I have so far not needed to replace or repair a single sail panel. I have, however, bent a few battens. Since they are of aluminium, they bend instead of break, so they can easily be pulled out, straightened and then stuck back into the pocket. If you know about a faster way of doing that, then let me know.

In case it turns out I have under-dimensioned a batten or two in a sail, and need a new one which doesn’t go into the original pocket, I know I can rip open the single seam holding my old pocket and install a new, wider one. With a sail assembled with Amateur Method B this can be done without having to put any of the sail under the arm of the sewing machine.

Conclusion: One certainly doesn’t need to use batten pockets, but please let me know about any quicker and easier alternative :-) .

Arne

One will of course also need rather roomy batten pockets for this sort of hinges. Malena’s 40mm hinges just made it into the pockets.

 At the risk of being tarred, feathered and run off the web, I'm going to start another thread: "Are Batten Pockets Really Necessary?"

Arne wrote:

Gary Pearce wrote:OK,

I need to ask a really dumb question here, please excuse my ignorance but .....

why are hinges needed at all ?

Gary, 

I can only speculate why some stick with hinges and some have changed to baggy or cambered panels instead. 

I have used hinges + cambered panels, changed to cambered panels, changed back again to flat sail with hinges, and now I'm going to stick with my current approach as giving the best all-round solution - some of each. I want to see all of these in a sail: good performance, easy to look at, easy to set well, easy to live with under cruising conditions. I get all of these with Weaverbird's current sail.

Gary wrote:

Now I know that most JR battens extend fwd of the mast but why can they not be finessed into the required curve ?

They can. This is what Nils has done (see earlier in this topic). But because we sail on both tacks, we need to be able to flip those battens from one side to the other, around their long axis. Nils has written at length in the magazine about how he does this.

Thats with stiff battens, which is what we really must have with JR. Flexible battens were tried, a long time ago, and found wanting. They bend too much in heavy airs, and not enough in light airs.

David,
you cannot take Annie’s experience with Passepatu and just transfer them onto Malena. The biggest difference is that Passepatu’s hinges were inside hinges (see newsletter 50), with the hinge bit no stronger than the battens of Malena, and I guess Passepatu is 4-5 times heavier than Malena. It appeared that the hinges on P. either worked themselves out, or the hinges or battens simply bent in stronger winds. The whole ship appeared to be really clapped out.

Malena’s hinges would operate fully from F1 (when I learned to use a THP and ease the LHP): By sitting on the lee side, the light boat would heel 3-4 degrees which let the sail swing out and the hinges go to their stops. I did some remarkable stunts in F1-F2 with boats around me just sitting there. I never had problems with the hinges working loose, with that internal line set up with some tension in it.

As for wear and tear of my hinges for long term use, you may be right; only trying it will tell, but your experience with GRP-hinges cannot be transferred straight onto my aluminium hinges. Although aluminium is quite soft and vulnerable to scratching, it is still a lot tougher than GRP. Now I had another look at one of those hinges (sitting in my cellar and used for ‘spares’). They only saw a few hundred miles sailing, but there is just about no sign of wear on them. I had hedged my bet, though  -  the top batten was straight.

As for aerodynamics, and number of hinges, I basically made two hinges on each batten. Each hinge was lengthened a bit to smoothen out the curve, so it appeared more like four hinges, each with 8° bend. I did it this way because I was afraid of sharp corners in the camber of the sail. I needed not have worried as the sail cloth between the battens appeared to even out the curve.

The symmetric shape of the camber was surprisingly efficient. One evening I had the chance to test Malena against a sister boat with the original rig. To our surprise, we tacked inside the other boat, and were even a bit faster. The main drawback was that the sail’s CP had moved aft, so weather helm increased. One will of course also need rather roomy batten pockets for this sort of hinges. Malena’s 40mm hinges just made it into the pockets.

If I were to make a JR with hinges again (I am not), I may well make a copy of that 1991 rig, but with the shorter MkII hinges (JRA Mag. 54, p.33). I would ensure I had tall enough mast to let the THP easily haul the sail well aft. Then the fore hinges would work well.

Finally...
As for the English saying about sucking eggs; we Norwegians also have a fitting saying:
“The fact that you know something, doesn’t prove that you know everything”.

Arne