Barry & Meps / Stellrecht & Schulte wrote:I'm planning to sew batten pockets for the middle of the sail, and sew an extra webbing loop to the boltrope for each batten. It could be an open loop or a small pocket on the leech, and will be an open webbing loop at the luff, allowing the sail to be tensioned to the batten as neededPJR suggests that batten ends should not protrude past the leech, as they will likely foul the sheets if they do. PJR suggests a webbing loop sewed on the sail and the sheetlet tied onto it.So what has worked well? I'm leaning toward capturing the leech end of the batten in a pocket, although If I do, I would leave a gap or a hole just ahead of my boltrope so I could lash it to the batten with a matching hole through the batten end.
A webbing loop parallel to the batten, sewn to the opposite side of the sail from the batten and passing around a smooth shallow groove in the batten end, works well if you put two eyes in the sail, above and below the batten with a triangular lashing through the webbing loop and both eyes. This works at both luff and leech, with the leech being lashed first so as to prevent the batten from protruding.
However, I have come to prefer a more "engineered" solution. I put a pressed 10mm eye in the sail, through sufficient patches, and through it, a panhead or csk 8mm machine screw that assembles to a drilled and tapped hole in the (plugged) end of the batten. Then the batten end is held securely flush with the leech.
I was never able to make closed batten pockets that didn't eventually chafe from the inside.
For single sheeting, the webbing loop attachment as per PJR is still as good as anything, and better than most. The force from the sheet is transferred directly to the sail, rather than from the sheet to the batten, the batten to the sail.