Advantages, if any, of fully battened sails

[Scotty_Tradewind]

On the Twister Association website this question has been raised with so far no answers.


"I was curious to know how many of you are using a fully battened main on the Twister. What are the pros and cons in your experience?"

I have a fully battened mainsail but with very little experience of anything else. What advantages and disadvantages are there from one to the other?

 

[BlueSkyNick]

Primary benefit - shape of sail
secondary benefit - they drop down into a stack pack easier (or so I am told)

 

[Lee_Shaw]

On the Twister Association website this question has been raised with so far no answers.


"I was curious to know how many of you are using a fully battened main on the Twister. What are the pros and cons in your experience?"

I have fully battened sails but with very little experience of anything else. What advantages and disadvantages are there from one to the other?

On a twister the benefits are marginal. On a larger boat they start to make more sense. On a larger boat with a rig without a backstay incumberance on roach protruberance they make even more sense.

 

[Quandary]

Fully battened sails

Having cruised and raced with both and currently sailing with a fully battened main I agree with the advantages re stowage on the boom etc. for cruising. For me the major disadvantage is the difficulty in de powering the main in gusty conditions using both the sheet and the vang. I used to be able to hammer along and simply let the boom rise a bit to dump power in every gust. The fully battened sail needs the kicker right off and the sheet let go and still takes a big bear off to remain upright. This forces us to reef much earlier than we would with a conventionally battened sail and I suspect is the reason you see so many Benybavs. sailing about with a reef in in 14 kts. of wind. You never used to see two reefs used below force 6 but now it is not uncommon in force 4.

 

[earlybird]

A further difference is that they flap less when nearly head to wind, this is esp. useful when motoring with the main up.

 

[Skysail]

Another advantage - more usable sail area via larger roach. More control of sail shape.

Disadvantage - as above plus the bigger the sail the better batten car hardware you need to raise and lower the sail. Greater weight.

 

[pragmatist]

I may get flamed because firstly I don't have experience of a fully battened main and secondly ours is a larger boat, tho in much the same style as a Twister. We changed to a half-way house when we got a new mainsail. Sir wanted full battens and I wanted soft so the sailmaker suggested a compromise. I now wish that we'd gone for fully battened. Our current main is great for sail shape, much more powerful than the flat behind-mast furling main the boat came with and much more controllable than any of our previous soft mains (including a Sadler 29 - not so far off a Twister).

And I no longer get screamed at when I drop the main - the days of "I can't see where I'm effing going" have gone - all drops into stack pack like a dream !

Oh and it's much quieter. So if I had the choice again I'd say YES to fully battened. He'd just say "I told you so !"

 

[nickbailhache]

I deliberately did not buy a fully battened mainsail 6 years ago. Whilst there are advantages such as stowing in a stack pack, one needs to be head to wind when hoisting and lowering. I like to be able to get it down any time, even on a run! I have a Moody 31.

 

[Quandary]

Fully battened mains

Selden now make a mast section called MDS (multi diirectional system, I think?) which is what we have. This is being used on a lot of production boats specifically to reduce friction on batten cars as fully battened mains have become more or less standard. The internal channels in the mast extrusion that the car wheels run in are doubled and at 90 degrees to each other( forward and sideways) and each car has four wheels in each direction which allows you to apply a decent amount of batten tension and to drop the sail without being always head to wind. It works well in overcoming friction and permits decent camber with good (screw) adjustment for the batten tension. I would worry that adapted cars on a conventional mast would not allow as much adjustment but admit that I have only regularly experienced normally battened mains plus this purpose designed system.
I would add that a good (expensive) batten car system is going to be needed to avoid frustration.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

I have just removed my "stak pak" and converted the main back to standard battens.

Basically I was fed up with a sail: -

1. that would not flap and therefore drove the boat when I didn't want it to
2. extra wear and tare on the sail from the battons
3. batten cars requiring service and replacement
4. the extra windage of sailing about with your boom cover permanently attached (also looks sloppy).
5. a hassle to rig up / de rig

I can now once again control the boat under sail a lot easier. There is no loss in performance either.

When I drop the main it cab be rough bundled and one sail tie sorts out the visibility issue.

The boat is a Rival 41C

 

[Danny Jo]

secondary benefit - they drop down into a stack pack easier (or so I am told)

Visiting crew gawp when they see Freestyle's main coming down in 1.5 seconds flat, and ready-flaked to boot. I'm not sure that would work without ball-bearing cars, though.

 

[arfa]

a vote for the fully battened sail

Ok I sail a tiddly 21 footer but until I went for the fully battened mainsail I had a serious rounding up problem in my little pride and joy. The sail shape is so much better and much more controllable in a gust despite the kicker depowering disadvantage.
For trimming the sails, the genoa is much more critical in my set up and the main largely happily follows. The other advantagte is the stack pack is much easier with full battens.
I am therefore a convert !

 

[Greenwichman]

Battens

Opted for fully battened main on my Beneteau 285, chiefly because of: sail shape (efficient on the wind, even when slab reefed; and excellent to set as an aerofoil on a reach); ease of stacking on boom; and ability to 'feather' in gusts.

The full length battens reduce the belly in the sail and enable a really flat set when the wind pipes up. In gusts it is easy to 'feather' the main, without releasing the kicker, either by dropping the sheet car down the track, or simply easing the sheet.

Contrary to some other posts, I would not favour releasing the kicker to 'belly' the sail, since it is the belly that causes weather helm and increases the angle of heel.

Have sailed but not owned a Twister; cannot comment on the benefits in that class, as the hull shape and ballast ratio are very different to the Beany2.

 

[DJE]

On the Twister Association website this question has been raised with so far no answers.
"I was curious to know how many of you are using a fully battened main on the Twister. What are the pros and cons in your experience?"
I have fully battened sails but with very little experience of anything else. What advantages and disadvantages are there from one to the other?

I've got a new main on my Sadler 29 this season. The rig can't be very different from the Twister. The sailmaker advised that the fully battened option wasn't worth the extra money! The top batten is full length but up there the sail is only 3 feet wide. The other 3 are all about 4 feet long and tapered. The shape is excellent and I can get it flat as a board if I want to by use of the outhall, halyard, and kicker. If you get a new sail you get a better shape, not all of that is attributable to the full length battens.

 

[blackdogsailing]

Another advantage - more usable sail area via larger roach. More control of sail shape.

Disadvantage - as above plus the bigger the sail the better batten car hardware you need to raise and lower the sail. Greater weight.

Very true regarding weight. On a bigger boat can make the difference between hoisting the main without a halyard winch and not. Ours is a sod single handed.

 

[snowleopard]

I would first look at the position of your shrouds. If you have a backstay and 90° shrouds a FB main should be OK. If you have swept-back spreaders I would avoid it. The reason I say this is that, as has been mentioned above, the FB main is hard to de-power and manoeuvres like picking up buoys/MOB under sail will be very difficult. With square spreaders you have more latitude to ease the main out.

With my unstayed rig I can weathercock the main on any point of sailing so don't have that problem. I have the advantages with none of the disadvantages. I can drop the main in 5 secs into the stackpack and go straight back to the helm without having to faff around stowing or tying up the sail.

 

[rickym]

I have a fully battened main on a Sadler 32. A very powerful sail that keeps it's shape well but needs full use of the traveller to avoid weather helm when the wind gets up. Down wind it is difficult to de-power as the sail maintains it's shape assisted by a rod kicker. Without a lazy jack/stackpak system it is almost impossible to stow but with this setup it is easy short handed. Only negative is the need to be head to wind to hoist and drop.
Initially I thought it would be a waste on a 32 footer it probably is on a smaller yacht. having got it I wouldn't swap it.

 

[Chris_Robb]

On the Twister Association website this question has been raised with so far no answers.


"I was curious to know how many of you are using a fully battened main on the Twister. What are the pros and cons in your experience?"

I have fully battened sails but with very little experience of anything else. What advantages and disadvantages are there from one to the other?

Go and chat with Bob Trembath on Bluenote Moody 36 dark blue), on E pontoon. We has just had a new sail from Flew's, and really sings the praises of the fully battens. (and Mark Flews work)

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

Many thanks for all your input. As you may gather I'm relatively inexperienced and from some postings I can now relate to some of the happenings aboard my own boat.
The main is defiant to be depowered. In fact I have a taller than usual mast at 37' with masthead rig. In light winds it would seem advantageous but I soon need to reef the main to keep her upright on a reach as she still sails well according to the tails and the feel of things, even when the mainsheet is let off to spill the wind. Having no lines back to the cockpit I cannot easily release the kicker in a hurry so I do have to think ahead if required.
I don't have lazy jacks but I do find the sail is easy to 'flake' onto the boom. With four battens I merely flake with each batten coming the same side so it's all easy to sort and to tie to the boom even in a blow on my own.
I occassionally drop the main on a run if for instance approaching an anchorage in light winds. I scandalise the main by lifting the boom with the topping lift some 35 - 40deg and down she comes with no resistance on the batten cars. (I do tend to lubricate the cars now and again and do check and make sure your gooseneck is capable of going at that angle without binding on itself)
In stronger winds there is more resistance , so to attempt to drop the main would then put a lot of strain on each car.
The battens do help to keep sail shape even when slab reefed down.
Overall, I'm very pleased I have a fully battened main.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

I am philosophical tonight. I always travel on sunny days and I always arrive on time.