Hi Guys
First time I've pulled this sail out of the bag and rigged it up. Had it out in 30 knots with a couple of bigger gusts. Jason sent me this photo and I noticed the battens look like they need some serious tension. I've never had to do this with any of my other sails. Do you have any advice on getting it right? I've heard too much tension can break battens. Do I rig it up and then apply tension. It looked fine on the beach. Maybe it wasn't enough dh.
BTW, the sail felt really great at Primbee last week. First hour I didn't have anywhere near enough downhaul and I was suffering quite a lot of backhand pressure in the bigger gusts. This image is pre-downhaul. After adding more to it the sail seemed to accelerate beautifully and felt really locked in when the bullets came through. Fantastic freerace twin-cam sails. Love them so much that I have a whole quiver from 5.5 - 7.8 with every step between.
Cheers
Nigel
From what I understand if there are small vertical creases along the batten pockets, they are symptom of not enough batten tension. From your photo I don't think the battens need more tension.
Select to expand quoteMobydisc said..
From what I understand if there are small vertical creases along the batten pockets, they are symptom of not enough batten tension. From your photo I don't think the battens need more tension.
Okay, thanks Karl. Perhaps it was the lack of downhaul?
A friend of mine recently took some photos of me sailing and I was disappointed to see many photos of creases on my sail too, just like yours. Some of the photos had no creases and the sail looked perfect. I'm not sure but I'm guessing the creases show up from the bouncing along the water, or as the board is pushed upwards by the chop, it makes the sail twist/bounce/wrinkle a bit.
I'd test the tension, if the screw turns very easily, then you can put more on. You certainly don't want to over do it, that's adding unwanted stress to the rig.
Creases running from tip of one batten to the base of the one above are fairly normal for a sail under load, but yours looks a bit excessive, and it does seem a few of the creases run through the batten pocket into the next panel, tightening the batten may get rid of this.
The tension should be just firm, not tight.
