Paul Thompson wrote:

Robert Prince wrote:The battens we had were identical to Fantail's, being Ullrich Alluminuim UA7420 drawn tube with drawn tube sleeving at the joints.

Rob and Maren

Well Rob, then you know the answer. Annie's sail is 317 ft.sq. and her boat is under 3 tons. The 38mm battens that she has are adequate for the job on her boat. No ways are they going to do the job for you when the lady (your Spray) puts her shoulder in and gets down to some serious work.

Hi Paul,

Good point, we agree.

In defence of Pacific Spray she does appear to be easily driven, despite her weight and the wooden masts take a bit of tension off the sails. We agree that the battens are too light but maybe the wooden booms are too bendy? Have you any thoughts on alloy boom sizes?

Rob and Maren

TONY AND SALLY SUMMERS wrote:

We too had problems on Ron Glas last summer. trying to gybe the reefed mainsail in a hurry when hit by a 40knot squall, resulted in the top three battens--  only 38mm alloy--- bending in spectacular style. We have since straightened them and sleeved the weak spots with alloy dinghy mast, which is is good so far, with a boat of 16 tons 38mm seems too light---  having said that Jock McLeod sailed her 100,000 miles plus across the north Atlantic with an extraordinary collection of battens,---  alloy, oregon. fibreglass---  all three materials in one sail at times!!

It does occur to me that whilst the junk rig is famously easy to gybe in reasonable conditions with full sail up-- the friction in the multipart sheets give a nice slow gybe----  gybing a big  reefed sail in a wind is much more akin to gybing a gaffer. Because only part of the sheet system is in operation the braking effect is less and the big reefed bundle is heavy, cosequently an uncontrolled gybe is painful and damaging! The bundle is best hauled amidships and then released on the other gybe as softly as possible.---  obvious really, but in the heat of the moment.........      TONY &SALLY

 

Hi Tony and Sally,

We totally agree with your thoughts. We have been concerned about gybing when the wind is up. Once the boom starts to bend and sky upwards I have opted for going about, a much safer option. It almost seems as if the wooden boom bends quite easily but the battens above are stiffer until they bend or snap. I agree with everyone that they are too light, however.

Rob and Maren

We too had problems on Ron Glas last summer. trying to gybe the reefed mainsail in a hurry when hit by a 40knot squall, resulted in the top three battens--  only 38mm alloy--- bending in spectacular style. We have since straightened them and sleeved the weak spots with alloy dinghy mast, which is is good so far, with a boat of 16 tons 38mm seems too light---  having said that Jock McLeod sailed her 100,000 miles plus across the north Atlantic with an extraordinary collection of battens,---  alloy, oregon. fibreglass---  all three materials in one sail at times!!

It does occur to me that whilst the junk rig is famously easy to gybe in reasonable conditions with full sail up-- the friction in the multipart sheets give a nice slow gybe----  gybing a big  reefed sail in a wind is much more akin to gybing a gaffer. Because only part of the sheet system is in operation the braking effect is less and the big reefed bundle is heavy, cosequently an uncontrolled gybe is painful and damaging! The bundle is best hauled amidships and then released on the other gybe as softly as possible.---  obvious really, but in the heat of the moment.........      TONY &SALLY

Thanks everyone for the feedback - it has been quite overwhelming.

The oregon boom was a top quality North American bit of wood. As Annie pointed out it certainly did bend and I guess it was too light. 

Thank you David, for the advice on the mainsail sheeting - I'll do that. Today we took the sails to a local sailmaker for a couple of repairs and to get some cringles added for the extra sheetlet on the mainsail. From the array of bent and broken battens we have made 3 battens for the foresail, sleeving them together with bits of sleeve we had. The battens we had were identical to Fantail's, being Ullrich Alluminuim UA7420 drawn tube with drawn tube sleeving at the joints. Will complete the other 2 foresail battens tomorrow then shorten the main boom so that it fits where the foresail one was. Hopefully we will be sailing again with the foresail only, at no cost. This will give us time to look at better options for the battens and the booms. I'm not sure what the answer is at this stage.

Rob and Maren