battens

[mutt]

11.3.5 Battens: Sails shall have not more than three battens of maximum width 55mm and of maximum length 765mm, except that the top batten may be of any lenght provided that it does not project more than 100mm outside the sail. The centreline of any batten shall fall within 55mm of a leech measurement point as defined in Rule 11.3.6
why?
and if you want a why not - I'd personally prefer a more robust sail and I could acheive that with battens.

[paul turner]

Dear Mr Mutt, you seem to be (quite rightly in my view) questioning a lot of old rules so we can re-visit/chop out redundant restrictions. Are we thinking here in this thread about fully battoned sails? I sailed NWNW last year with an experimental fully battoned main that Kevan Bloor made a few years ago (measures to the old rules) - and it took some people most of the week to spot the difference. I will take them to the GILL meeting at Hunstanton for people to look at and evaluate. I am told that they last longer and hold their shape better than short battoned and I have found rumours of scary gybing, difficulties in tacking and problems de-powering on the start line unfounded - but, hey, I am not a "front of the fleet" man!

[mutt]

yes - boardly speaking that is what I'm suggesting. This rule in particular annoys me as its a restriction that completely ignores the modern world. Fully battened sails are used in a vast mumber of dinghys perfectly acceptably. N12 sails are very lightweight and unsupported, and so stretch and loose shape in high winds. It just seems entirely arbitary to prevent people choosing more robust sail technology particularly those of us who aren't competing for first place. Why can't I go and buy sails that last longer.
If there IS a supportable argument that fully battened sails give an unreasonable performance enhancement that wouldn't be available to all competitors (i.e. like the minimum mast weight rule) or a safety case (like the boyancy rule) then I'd accept the rule has a place. Otherwise we should drop it as an unreasonable restriction on longevity of our sailing equipment.
In my cynical moments this particular rule looks like a sop to the sailmakers.

[Kevin]

So we end up with everyone having two sails: fully battened for when the breeze is up and a soft one for the lighter conditions. Yep, I'd say that is a sop to the sailmakers and enough to rule aout a few more joining the class.
 
Kevin

[philipcosson]

What is the evidence for "enough to rule aout a few more joining the class"?
You are limiting the outlay to two sets for a good few years, rather than a new set every season.
Phil

[John Murrell (Guest)]

I believe that the basis of the rule goes back to 1936, days when the Twelve didn't even have the full length top batten and the rules stated that the sails had to be capable of being folded up and be able to fit in a cake tin.

Do fully battened sails really last longer? I suspect in reality not; seeing how the Salcombe Solo fleet keep buying new sails (or is it new boats to put their old sails on?!!!) I suspect that the competitive life to a fully battened sail is about the same as ours.

[mutt]

So we end up with everyone having two sails: fully battened for when the breeze is up and a soft one for the lighter conditions. Yep, I'd say that is a sop to the sailmakers and enough to rule aout a few more joining the class.
 
Kevin

hmmm . .. is that so? I didn't notice any of the 100 odd moth sailors at weymouth last week carrying two sets of sails. I know the cherubs don't. what about the merlins?
I guess yachts generally carry around a range of sails and so do `18 foot skiffs but that is altogethor more to do with depowering by having a smaller rig up. We have that flexibility now and I only know of one national12 sailor to choose a smaller sailplan.
 

[mutt]

I believe that the basis of the rule goes back to 1936, days when the Twelve didn't even have the full length top batten and the rules stated that the sails had to be capable of being folded up and be able to fit in a cake tin.

Do fully battened sails really last longer? I suspect in reality not; seeing how the Salcombe Solo fleet keep buying new sails (or is it new boats to put their old sails on?!!!) I suspect that the competitive life to a fully battened sail is about the same as ours.

 
do any of the sole sailors choose short battened mainsails? or do they all choose fully battened?

[JohnMurrell]

Have you ever seen a Solo without a fully battened sail? I haven't and according to their class rules, and I quote - There shall be five batten pockets extending from the leech to not more than 20mm from the mast positioned according to the sail measurement diagram etc etc etc..................

[Tasarteaser (Guest)]

Have you ever seen a Solo without a fully battened sail? I haven't and according to their class rules, and I quote - There shall be five batten pockets extending from the leech to not more than 20mm from the mast positioned according to the sail measurement diagram etc etc etc..................

The life of a sail is also dependent upon the material. Tasar sails are fully battened and according to some, the new Mylar sails don´t last as long as the fully battened soft dacron used to. I believe solos still use dacron, so their sails either take a real hammering or they think they need new ones when theirs get dirty 
Cheers! 
Jim.

[JohnMurrell]

Nah! Jim, you got that wrong!!!!!!  The Solo's use exotics like us........................

[andyp]

Are you sure, whilst sailing at Rutland a couple of weeks ago the Solo Inlands were on and all the sails looked pretty white to me, my brother in law also sails a pretty new and very competitive solo and all of his numerous sets of sails are Dacron but he still gets through them as quickly as us! 

[Jimbo41]

Are you sure, whilst sailing at Rutland a couple of weeks ago the Solo Inlands were on and all the sails looked pretty white to me, my brother in law also sails a pretty new and very competitive solo and all of his numerous sets of sails are Dacron but he still gets through them as quickly as us! 

Fully battened sails do age quite quickly, but have advantages of keeping their true shape whilst they age and don't get damaged at the points where short battens do (I'm thinking here of the lower batten pocket of the 12 main sail....). This was perhaps the reason why the last sail rule change took place, in order to officially sanction sail making standards which were already in use prior to the time the rule was changed.
Whilst we're on the subject, the age of the fully battened sail is dependent upon how tight the battens are. If they are passive, as in the Tasar, serving the purpose of just keeping the shape taken on by the sail due to prebend, leach tension and vang pressure, generally they can last quite a long time. However, if they are really tight and used to actively keep the profile of the sail, re. 49er, Dart 18, Solo (?) etc, they do not last as long. I know from friends who sail a 49er that after 4 or 5 regattas they have to send the main sail back to the sailmaker to have the luff restitched due to the pressure from the tight batten pockets.
Fully battened sails however, only really come into their own when using a turning wing mast.
Jim.

[JohnMurrell]

Hum.........................
Look at the Fotoboat Solo Nats page - looks like plenty of erotics there..............................................................:-/

[DB_No_1]

Are full length battens better?

The Blaze class don't think so. The original sail had full length batterns, but they now all have a slightly smaller sail which is not fully battened.

I believe the reason for the change was to make the boat easier to sail. When I sailed one with the fully battened sail, tacking was interesting for a lightweight as there was no power in the sail until the battens flipped, then bang. I also assume that they were hard to depower in a breeze. This is a problem with the RS200 and why you have to have weight even to keep one up. the 12 is easy to depower and that make it a joy to sail.

One thing about putting more power into  12 is that you will please the heavyweights and upset the lightweights. The 12 is seen as a boat for lightweights, change this and you will loose the parent and child teams as well as the lightweight teams. the 12 has a niche, increasing power will probably change the niche and make it smaller.


Nigel 3490