Tapered Battens Comparison ???

[Super_Dog]

Hey guys,
I've recently bought a 2013 nova and joined the fleet at Bartley. (Everyone has been very helpful)
However, due to current circumstances I've spent a lot of time sourcing materials to do a set of upgrades (Kicker calibration scale Etc).
During this, I have come across talks about tapered battens, but i am slightly confused about it, so hoping someone can comment upon this...
There are three things I'm having issues understanding
1) I'm finding it unclear to where one can get tapered battens from

2) If anything else has to be modified to be able to use tapered battens

3) When do tapered battens have an advantage over the standard battens (Jeckells)

If anyone can comment upon any of these points, I will be very thankful
Sean 1073

[Pete1177]

Hi Sean,

I started think about developing a set of low cost tapered battens about 3 years ago. The development was written up in the tuning forum (see 'The Batten Diary thread starting Sun Jul 23, 2017). In the end I was able to source a set of tapered battens from Dynaflex in France (to my specification), and over 50 sets of these have been sold to date (at approximately £70 per set).

The intro and benefits of using tapered battens is written up in my article in the Technical Section under 'Performance Tuning Using Tapered Battens'. A follow-on article 'Sailing with Tapered Battens' covers the rig setup and sailing with the Dynaflex battens in particular.

The Class membership demand for tapered battens has pretty well disappeared and I have run out of stock. I could source some more if there was enough demand. I made no money out of sourcing these and it was a lot of work, so I would have to have substantial interest (say 20 sets) to get some more. What makes it difficult is that they are very difficult to pack and post as most couriers will set a maximum length for shipment of 2 meters otherwise P&P becomes huge in relation to the cost of the individual set.

I can suggest that a useful performance benefit can be gained using a 3T+2N arrangement (bottom 3 battens tapered, top 2 standard normal - untapered) which reduces the cost to about £50 per set. I found that for newish sails the rig performs better with this setup. For an old 'end of life' Jeckels sail, using all 5 battens tapered seems to be better especially in light wind sailing where all the power comes from the top of the sail. This may be because with an old saggy sail there is not enough tension in the sail to set the draft and twist properly at the top of the sail, and the tapered top 2 battens sets a better sail shape. For newish sails, the camber at the top is too far forward with tapered battens so it's better to keep untapered battens in the top 2 pockets.

Sails are very expensive now - £800, so it makes sense to get more performance out of your old sails.

No rig changes are required apart from substituting the battens.

Hope that helps.

Pete Bingham
Class Secretary
SN1177

[Super_Dog]

Thanks Pete for your response.
I have read through the suggested texts, they were very informative.
Both of my sails are pretty knackered, so I am more interested in the full tapered set.
Have you started to compile a list of people who are interested in obtaining batten sets.
If so, could you add me to the list

Yet again, many thanks
Sean
SN1073

[GavinYoung68]

Hi Sean,

I have a set of Dynaflex VI tapered battens, originally bought from Pete. I no longer use them so if you are interested in trying I could sell them to you. These battens are not as stiff as the newer ones so if you are very light you may prefer stiffer ones otherwise they should be ok.