Annie Hill wrote:

I am planning to use bamboo for the battens on SibLim.  There are many reason for this, including cost, the use of even more of the earth's resources, having managed to  bend T6 alloy battens and the fact that bamboos grow (literally) like weeds in New Zealand.  David and Lynda's article about preparing their bamboos for Tin Hau has given me one route to follow, but I would be interested in hearing of other people's experiences, preparation, choice of bamboo, etc.  And how long they last!

I don't have any direct experience with bamboo, but was given some interesting advice once.  I had commented that the quality of bamboo seems to vary a great deal (All the bamboo battens on David Lewis's junk schooner, Taniwha, failed).  The advice was that you should cut bamboo from the shady side of a hill, as it grows too fast in direct sunlight.  But this could be baloney for all I know. 

Batten fendering was a ongoing research for us. We started out with only batten pockets and they wore through in no time. Our first modification was to put on some high pressure rubber water pipe with the same ID as the OD of the alloy battens. They fit so tight that we had to lubricate them to get them on and they have not budged since. We still have the batten pockets but they were protected with a strip of seat belt webbing.They never wore again and provided an extra layer of padding. The battens are silent. The alloy yards are wrapped with some really cheap rope that gives a nautical look and provides the fendering we needed.

Gary Pick wrote:I was wondering what to use for batten fendering and I think the simplest is to use 50mm diameter vinyl tubing. It will just slide over the batten and can be held in place by silicon. As for batten parrels I'm still trying to decid whether to use 10mm polypropylene rope inside 12mm poly pipe or 50mm webbing. I have plenty of both.

Batten fendering , you mean something between the metal of the batten and the

The only thing is I haven't use batten pockets, I've used webbing loops. So padding of some sort, I shall think about how I can do that.

I was wondering what to use for batten fendering and I think the simplest is to use 50mm diameter vinyl tubing. It will just slide over the batten and can be held in place by silicon. As for batten parrels I'm still trying to decid whether to use 10mm polypropylene rope inside 12mm poly pipe or 50mm webbing. I have plenty of both.