Mainsail Battens

underdog

underdog

Well-Known Member
Joined
28 Jan 2004
Messages
236
Location
northern ireland
Visit site
I am considering buying a new mainsail for my Artekno H 323 (big H boat). So far the quotes from sailmakers are offering me full length battens at a cost of approx £500 over the cost of conventional short battens. I have no experience of sailing a boat with full length battens.Is the extra cost worth it? What are the benefits and draw backs? The boat is used for club racing and an annual 500 mile cruise round the West coast of Scotland. It is often sailed short handed.
Would a good compromise be to have the top 2 battens full length and the bottom 2 conventional leech battens?
 

Attachments

  • 3800.jpg
    3800.jpg
    38 KB · Views: 1
Kemp sails wanted about an additional £800 for 4 full length battens (with cars,etc) on top of the normal sail price for my Catalina 270. In the end I went with just the top 2 as full length battens.

They do help the sail shape and also assist the lowering into the stack pack. I'm pleased with them.

Interestingly other companies prices far less but didn't offer cars on the battens. This keeps the price down but makes the sail less lovely to handle. You pays your money, etc.
 
That sounds a lot

Crusader supplied me one with cruising laminate with 5 full length battens and cars for around the same size boat ( Hanse 315) for just over the £2K mark last year.
 
If your going to use it for racing it's normal just to have one full length top batten then either two or three leech battens - you will probably find that over 95% of race boats will be set up like this as it gives the best balance of controllability and power.
 
Ingwe said:
If your going to use it for racing it's normal just to have one full length top batten then either two or three leech battens - you will probably find that over 95% of race boats will be set up like this as it gives the best balance of controllability and power.
Click to expand...

Agreed - last thing I want is for my relatively large mainsail to be hard to depower when racing. You can always reef if you're cruising.
 
My sailmaker commented that the "benefit" of full length battens is that you can make a good looking sail without using high quality fabric. His recommendation was two full lenght plus two leech battens. (and use proper sail cloth ��)
 
Having raced on a high performance carbon 37 ft boat last year with a fully battened high tech racing sails ( its also won its class in the Caribbean 600 but not with me onboard) I cant see why you wouldn't want full battens
 
geem said:
Having raced on a high performance carbon 37 ft boat last year with a fully battened high tech racing sails ( its also won its class in the Caribbean 600 but not with me onboard) I cant see why you wouldn't want full battens
Click to expand...

The Caribbean 600 is a long distance, offshore race. If the boat was set up for that I can see why you might go fully battened as you have plenty of time to reef or shake out reefs.

I trim main on 2 IRC race boats and also run my own. We race 90% short courses. All have one full batten at the top. All have powerful mains. In gusts / squalls we use the backstay and outhaul to blade out the sail, helping us stay flatter. By the time we get to the windward mark and bear away we'll want the power back and can turn it on again very quickly. There is no way we would ever reef during one of these short races.

Not saying this is the only way (as evidenced by your experience), but it is the reason most of us short course racers don't have fully battened mains.
 
mrming said:
The Caribbean 600 is a long distance, offshore race. If the boat was set up for that I can see why you might go fully battened as you have plenty of time to reef or shake out reefs.

I trim main on 2 IRC race boats and also run my own. We race 90% short courses. All have one full batten at the top. All have powerful mains. In gusts / squalls we use the backstay and outhaul to blade out the sail, helping us stay flatter. By the time we get to the windward mark and bear away we'll want the power back and can turn it on again very quickly. There is no way we would ever reef during one of these short races.

Not saying this is the only way (as evidenced by your experience), but it is the reason most of us short course racers don't have fully battened mains.
Click to expand...
When I was crewing we were short course sailing. Same sails and we won
 
tross said:
That sounds a lot

Crusader supplied me one with cruising laminate with 5 full length battens and cars for around the same size boat ( Hanse 315) for just over the £2K mark last year.
Click to expand...

Price for my 311mainsail from Hyde last year was considerably more with 4 battens & possible more in line with the OP's quote. I did not go for the cruising laminate. I have had 3 mainsails now & never felt the need for more than 4 full length battens

Re the top batten only being full length it can be a pain when tacking in light winds if it sticks to one side. If the sail is cut a bit like a fathead sail with a lot of roach in the head I expect that this can happen a lot
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top