Okay, my 7.2 Freespeed had replaced my 8.0 Freespeed for 8-9 knots light wind, but then it just did not have enough power, so went back to 8.0. Since then have had a problem getting the lower batten to rotate, tried more out haul, more down haul, nope. Then noticed the batten had punched through the luff end of the batten sleeve, so it was touching the side of the mast inside the luff sleeve, stopped and got off the water. So any easy ways to fix it?, thought about taping a folded over wider piece of plastic to the end of the batten and sliding batten back in, hoping plastic is wider than the hole in batten sleeve end and traps batten at end of batten sleeve. Under the blue fabric I can see a smooth piece of plastic, which guess wraps around the end of the batten sleeve to serve as a stop for the batten. That kinda worked but was tapping batten rod into place and it cut through plastic, opened up batten end, thinking about how to fix batten sleeve end so batten it trapped by it again, will talk with a sail shop tomorrow.
Picture of outside of batten sleeve luff end, and batten rod end which is chisel shaped. Basically a piece of plastic is wrapped around the batten end and sewn into place.
This happened to me once after twiddling, tweaking, wangling, fiddling and fxxcking around with the batten tension too much.
Select to expand quoteSparky said..
This happened to me once after twiddling, tweaking, wangling, fiddling and fxxcking around with the batten tension too much.
Oh I did all that for sure, and that damaged batten sleeve end is another reason why I am now releasing batten tension after each session
Take it to a sail repairer?
If you cant do that, buy a hand stitcher like this and do it yourself. Unpick all the seaming around the batten end. Add some thick webbing and stitch it back up again. If you are careful you can use the same holes in the sail. It will take a long time, maybe 3 weeks sitting in an air conditioned room
Make sure the batten end if rounded off so it doesnt poke through the material again.
But first find out the reason why it failed. Was it the batten end being sharp, or not enough reinforcement in the batten pocket, or both, or something else. The key to fixing things, is find out the root cause of the problem.
www.foxschandlery.com/speedy-stitcher-sewing-awl-1501?gclid=CjwKCAjw-rOaBhA9EiwAUkLV4sin-hX92ego8hHnqfBIvKGtX-TYuBe9HIpEEebTds02bOBv_W7opRoCQOAQAvD_BwE
Looks like an over-tensioned batten, in combination with a missing end-cap for the batten tip (unless it is still in the sail).
www.sailworks.com/the-gear/parts-lines/battens/endcap-for-rod-batten.html
Tough to find a good sailmaker around here now that Advance in St Pete is gone. I think your best bet is to take it home - drive across to Sandy Point and let Steve Gottlieb deal with it.
He'll probably unpick the luff sleeve and install new webbing at the end of the batten sleeve - essentially better than new.
If you absolutely needed to do it yourself I'd suggest doing something different: Unpick the batten sleeve, not the luff, to about a foot (or more) back from the luff. Sew a heavy piece of webbing to about 8" from the edge of the luff sleeve, fold it over, replace the batten sleeve and sew it down through the folded webbing and back into the sail. It's a good idea to use an adhesive to keep everything in place while you're sewing and you'll want to put the holes into the webbing before trying to install (a sailmakers' awl will work but so will a 1/16" bit in a hand drill). Waxed sailmakers' twine will work for thread and so will dental floss. Now trim the batten to fit the shorter batten sleeve. You'll now have a semi-soft sail which for foiling might be even better than a full RAF. Call Steve first, though, to see if he likes the plan at all.
Installing some kind of wider tip on the batten, or shoving something in there to block its pushing through will be at best a temporary fix. First front of the year comes through today, so the 7.2 will probably be enough for a while anyway!
Select to expand quoteAwalkspoiled said..
Tough to find a good sailmaker around here now that Advance in St Pete is gone. I think your best bet is to take it home - drive across to Sandy Point and let Steve Gottlieb deal with it.
Cody Steward does the repairs there or at least for a few of us here. Great guy. I've had a couple of sails done by him- nasty batten break and panel patch. Friends have had panels replaced. Better to have it done right, imho.
Thanks everyone for the help, really appreciate it! Thinking the original batten tip is still in the sleeve. Why did it happen?, probably an over-tensioned batten combined with an impact right there from who else but me!
There was a sail shop in Sarasota, can check with them, or Sandy Point for sure its a drive I have made before
The other option is to use contact cement, on the outside of the batten sleeve end, to glue on material to catch the batten rod, thinking 1st a layer of stainless steel tape, covered and trapped in place by nylon webbing, covered with plastic wall board that will rub on the mast with little friction. If that all fails, then yeah, open the batten end and do a proper repair, or have a sail repair shop to do it.
First front of season is coming in 1-3 days and need it fixed now!
The sail shop in Sarasota, Ullman Sails Florida, charges $90 hr, they thought it would take no more than 1 hr, but have a 2 weeks turn around time, I need it by this Wednesday!
Select to expand quoteSandman1221 said..
Thanks everyone for the help, really appreciate it! Thinking the original batten tip is still in the sleeve. Why did it happen?, probably an over-tensioned batten combined with an impact right there from who else but me!
There was a sail shop in Sarasota, can check with them, or Sandy Point for sure its a drive I have made before
The other option is to use contact cement, on the outside of the batten sleeve end, to glue on material to catch the batten rod, thinking 1st a layer of stainless steel tape, covered and trapped in place by nylon webbing, covered with plastic wall board that will rub on the mast with little friction. If that all fails, then yeah, open the batten end and do a proper repair, or have a sail repair shop to do it.
First front of season is coming in 1-3 days and need it fixed now!
The sail shop in Sarasota, Ullman Sails Florida, charges $90 hr, they thought it would take no more than 1 hr, but have a 2 weeks turn around time, I need it by this Wednesday!
I've had a bad experience with the guys in Sarasota. Needed some mouse damage (typical New England problem) repaired on a wide luff sleeve and their work was slow, sloppy and amateurish, with no understanding of the special requirements of a windsurf repair.
Select to expand quoteAwalkspoiled said..Sandman1221 said..
Thanks everyone for the help, really appreciate it! Thinking the original batten tip is still in the sleeve. Why did it happen?, probably an over-tensioned batten combined with an impact right there from who else but me!
There was a sail shop in Sarasota, can check with them, or Sandy Point for sure its a drive I have made before
The other option is to use contact cement, on the outside of the batten sleeve end, to glue on material to catch the batten rod, thinking 1st a layer of stainless steel tape, covered and trapped in place by nylon webbing, covered with plastic wall board that will rub on the mast with little friction. If that all fails, then yeah, open the batten end and do a proper repair, or have a sail repair shop to do it.
First front of season is coming in 1-3 days and need it fixed now!
The sail shop in Sarasota, Ullman Sails Florida, charges $90 hr, they thought it would take no more than 1 hr, but have a 2 weeks turn around time, I need it by this Wednesday!
I've had a bad experience with the guys in Sarasota. Needed some mouse damage (typical New England problem) repaired on a wide luff sleeve and their work was slow, sloppy and amateurish, with no understanding of the special requirements of a windsurf repair.
Okay, thanks for the heads up Awalkspoiled.
Went and made my hack repair, SS tape wrapped around batten sleeve end, covered with plastic wall board, all contact cemented in place, made batten tip wider with stainless steel tape and Gorilla tape and tapped into the sleeve until I could anchor batten leech end adjuster in place with the retention rope. Then clamped the batten sleeve luff end on both sides of batten rod. Will let Weldwood contact cement cure overnight and then see what happens when I tension the batten. Only issue so far is the luff end of batten sleeve now protrudes a little farther into the luff sleeve, will see how that affects the sail, but first will see if contact cemented ss tape and 1/16" thick wallboard can hold batten end in place. The Weldwood contact cement is really tough based on other repairs, and saltwater does not affect it.
The big black Gorilla tape patch covers a tear in X-ply right along top of batten sleeve, must have hit the sail there tearing sail panel and forcing batten rod through end cap and batten sleeve end.
If that does not work, will take apart, clean up and either get the sail awl and sew myself, or make a trip to Sandy Point.
Stainless steel tape contact cemented in place
Plastic 1/16" wall board contact cemented over ss tape.
The whole mess covered with black Gorilla tape and clamped.
Batten chisel tip end blunted with ss tape covered with black Gorilla tape
This happens a lot on batten pocket ends where there is no monofilm to help the batten 'slide' around the mast.
The batten end webbing can simply wear through over time as the sail rotates from side to side, especially if you sail with too much batten rotation.
I'll admit when it happened to me on older sails I just used to take the batten out and wrap some sticky plaster (elastoplast) around the end to make the batten tip too big to go through the hole already made.
Select to expand quoteBasher said..
This happens a lot on batten pocket ends where there is no monofilm to help the batten 'slide' around the mast.
The batten end webbing can simply wear through over time as the sail rotates from side to side, especially if you sail with too much batten rotation.
I'll admit when it happened to me on older sails I just used to take the batten out and wrap some sticky plaster (elastoplast) around the end to make the batten tip too big to go through the hole already made.
I tried doing that, widening tip with some plastic, but when I tapped batten rod into sleeve so that rod tensioner fit, batten tip punched through the plastic, your elastoplast sounds better. Part of the problem is I think the old plastic batten end cap is still in the sleeve end, so when the batten end with plastic wrap gets there area is cramped so need to tap batten end to seat and then it cut through plastic. Maybe should of used ss tape first time. But the batten sleeve end is just a little wider than the batten rod, so not much to hold in place on this sail batten sleeve end with cut through it. The batten sleeve end is wrapped with a piece of plastic on the outside, no webbing, so figured the plastic wall board would do the job. Just not sure if contact cement can hold it all together when under batten tension and during sail rotation. Will find out tomorrow.
Just thought to check the mast for wear from the batten end, can feel light indentations/grooves in mast, but can not see any worn through carbon, so hopefully mast is okay.
And just thought of a more secure way to fix the batten sleeve end, use the plastic wall board as I did, but also use two ss screws with nylox nuts, one above and one below the batten sleeve, to hold the new plastic wall board end piece in place. That would definitely be a secure repair since the screws would go through the old plastic end piece.
Was not 100% confident that the contact cement would hold under continuous batten pressure AND the pressure from me hitting the sail again in that area, so drilled two holes through white plastic and ss batten sleeve end reinforcements (and all the original batten end reinforcements) and put in 2 ss screws with Nylox nuts, tested under batten tension and worked good. Now I am confident repaired batten sleeve end will hold. So no longer a complete hack job! Will just have to see how the sail rigs and flips.
Select to expand quoteSparky said..
Good elegant repair Sandman, looks like new and should work well.
Thanks Sparky
If its gone through the inboard end and is poking through into the mast one thing is poke the batten in and at the desired place, drill through the batten at the mast end, bolt it in place, then you can tension it with the outboard end, doesn't look great but its an easy fix and works.
Speedy stitcher or drill through and place a small stainless steel bolt and nut right on front of batten. May need to shorten batten to fit in tensioner.
Select to expand quoteWind Smurf said..
If its gone through the inboard end and is poking through into the mast one thing is poke the batten in and at the desired place, drill through the batten at the mast end, bolt it in place, then you can tension it with the outboard end, doesn't look great but its an easy fix and works.
Thanks Wind Smurf, did you mean drill trough the batten sleeve and put in a bolt to act as a stop for batten end? The rod batten in this sail is pretty small in diameter and being round harder to drill through.
Select to expand quoteManuel7 said..
Speedy stitcher or drill through and place a small stainless steel bolt and nut right on front of batten. May need to shorten batten to fit in tensioner.
Actually, I have a speedy stitcher but the needles I got with it are too big in diameter I think, but I like your idea Manuel7, basically make a new stop for the batten end using thread or a screw. The two screws I used did form a clamp with the white plastic, that should help hold batten end in place, on top of the contact cement. Hopefully now that I am not over tensioning the battens, this will not happen again in the near future.
Select to expand quoteSurferKris said..
Looks like an over-tensioned batten, in combination with a missing end-cap for the batten tip (unless it is still in the sail).
www.sailworks.com/the-gear/parts-lines/battens/endcap-for-rod-batten.html
Thanks SurferKris, I did not notice a bulge in the end of the batten sleeve after I removed the batten rod, but the tip could of been split in two? Now I am thinking I should of tried to use a chopstick or something to try to push out the split cap from the luff end of the batten sleeve through the cut in the end from the batten chisel end. I know when I broke a batten I had to work out the batten end cap all the way down the sleeve, very noticable bulge in sleeve. Maybe that is the real problem, no batten rod end cap. With the broken batten on another sail, when I pulled out the batten I could see a rim of epoxy where the plastic tip end was seated on the batten, did not notice any epoxy/glue rim on this batten rod. And with the sail that I broke the batten on, the batten end did not cut through the batten sleeve end, that batten had a lot more foce applied to it than this sail and batten.
Looks like it is near boom cut out. If you can get at end of pocket you can unpick stitching along an edge and pick out remains of batten. Restitch with dental floss (strong and doesn't rot in water)a nd a strong needle. If tip of pocket is worn pack with material before stitching end and ensure batten has a plastic tip added..
So here is what may have happened: 1) batten rod did not have a plastic end tip, and over time batten rod chisel end started cutting through the thick batten sleeve end material causing batten to stop rotating; 2) just the lower batten stopped rotating, so I started "bumping" the batten rod with my knee
to get it to rotate, that was my mistake, I should of tried to figure out why the one batten was not rotating asap; 3) sail panel just above batten rod pulled out a couple of inches along the top of the batten sleeve, due to me bumping batten and sometimes hitting sail panel, so used Gorilla tape to repair sail panel, but still had batten that was not rotating; 4) batten rod finally cut all the way through the batten sleeve end and entered the luff sleeve, so I did my semi hack repair.
Could of avoid the repairs to sail panel and batten sleeve if I had tried to figure out why the one batten was not rotating! All it would of needed then was a batten rod end plastic tip. Live and learn, hope this helps someone else not make the same mistakes.
Checked the next batten up to see it it had a plastic end cap, it did and the cap came off in the process revealing a white glue rim on the batten rod, and like I said I did not see that glue rim on the batten that cut through the batten sleeve end, so missing batten rod end cap is looking like the problem.
Select to expand quoteSparky said..
Yes, sounds good patronas, but it's the bottom batten isn't it Sandman.
Yup, bottom batten, could barely get my hand and fingers up far enough to touch batten sleeve end from the luff sleeve bottom, which was the closest opening.
Select to expand quoteSandman1221 said..Wind Smurf said..
If its gone through the inboard end and is poking through into the mast one thing is poke the batten in and at the desired place, drill through the batten at the mast end, bolt it in place, then you can tension it with the outboard end, doesn't look great but its an easy fix and works.
Thanks Wind Smurf, did you mean drill trough the batten sleeve and put in a bolt to act as a stop for batten end? The rod batten in this sail is pretty small in diameter and being round harder to drill through.
Usually the inboard ends of the batten aren't round as they are tapered.
Drill through the batten pocket and the actual batten then put a little bolt right through the whole lot. Then you can still tighten the adjuster at the end and all you have is a little hole and a bolt, far less messy and work ok.
Select to expand quoteWind Smurf said..Sandman1221 said..Wind Smurf said..
If its gone through the inboard end and is poking through into the mast one thing is poke the batten in and at the desired place, drill through the batten at the mast end, bolt it in place, then you can tension it with the outboard end, doesn't look great but its an easy fix and works.
Thanks Wind Smurf, did you mean drill trough the batten sleeve and put in a bolt to act as a stop for batten end? The rod batten in this sail is pretty small in diameter and being round harder to drill through.
Usually the inboard ends of the batten aren't round as they are tapered.
Drill through the batten pocket and the actual batten then put a little bolt right through the whole lot. Then you can still tighten the adjuster at the end and all you have is a little hole and a bolt, far less messy and work ok.
Not sure if I want to drill through the batten tip, if it breaks that could make more damage, but I agree that just a single bolt at the end of the batten sleeve would of been easier. However, I wanted to cover the cut open end of the batten sleeve, which was rough hard plastic, with the white plastic so that the batten sleeve end did not wear on the mast. And since I already had the big patch of black Gorilla tape covering that area, to reinforce a small tear in the sail panel along the batten sleeve, I did not care about the white plastic because it would get covered up. The two screws on either side of the batten rod end form a clamp with the white plastic that traps the batten end without drilling through it.
If I could do it all over, and there was no sail panel tear, I would get a replacement batten tip end and put on the batten, if the batten tensioned fine (because it was too big to go through the cut sleeve end) then I would use the Weldwood contact cement to glue on a piece of nylon webbing around the cut open batten sleeve end inside the luff sleeve to protect the mast from wear. Then the two screws would not be needed to clamp the batten end in place with the existing hard plastic in the batten sleeve end. I wanted this sail ready for yesterday's front, which did not deliver!
But again, all of this could of been avoided if I had taken the time to figure out why the one batten was no longer rotating, with the same downhaul and outhaul settings that had worked fine for years! In my defense, I had recently gotten a Phantom 4.5 sail and had problems getting the bottom batten rotating on that sail, it was solved with just a little more downhaul and outhaul (with more effort than on the Freespeeds) so I tried the same on the Freespeed 7.2, but when that did not work I should have stopped and figured out the problem, instead of using my knee to bump the batten around. First time I have encountered this kind of problem.
I could just get my arm and fingers up the luff sleeve, from the bottom opening, to touch the repaired batten sleeve end, and could feel part of the original batten end that had been cut open, it was sharp hard plastic, so I sanded it down, not sure if it would still contact the mast with the new white plastic end piece. Checked the next batten up, going down from the boom cutout, the blue nylon fabric that covered the batten sleeve end had worn off revealing the smooth hard plastic sheet that wrapped around the batten sleeve end. That is a very tough piece of plastic, but the batten rod chisel end has pretty sharp edges, so without an end cap and under tension I can see how it would slowly cut its way through the batten sleeve end.
If you can get access to the batten end then you could use some plastic and wrap around the batten end and glue in place, I'd then put a small bolt through either side of this re-enforcement.
Do not use the repair I did!, it only made things worse.
Got out today with the 7.2 Freespeed, the damaged batten end is closest to the foot of the sail, and that area of the sail is critical for sail performance, even a 2-3" open gap in a seam around there depowers the sail. That batten is also the last batten to pull away from the mast under downhaul. So any change in that batten end and the mast will stress the sail panels in that critical area. The white plastic batten sleeve end piece I added made the batten sleeve a little longer, I was concerned about batten rotation, but I should have realized being longer it would also stress the sail panels in that area The sail panel sewn to the top of that batten was already pulled out a little from the batten not having enough contact with the mast when the batten rod cut through the batten sleeve end and/or me bumping it with my knee to get it to rotate, but my repair increased batten tension on the mast and sail panel causing the sail panel sewn to the top of the batten sleeve to pull apart a little. The batten did rotate with enough outhaul, and I had fun for a while today, until I saw the panel seam pulling apart a little (no air gap, but would of if I kept going).
Sails are very sophisticated pieces of equipment, and repairing them should be done by an expert when the damage is near the foot of the sail on a horizontal seam, or any lower batten sleeve. Now I have used Gorilla tape successfully on horizontal seams that pulled out a little from a knee or hook impact, and higher up tape can work too because there is less pressure on the sail panels. So will remove my hack repair and plan a trip over to Sandy Point to get the sail repaired properly so that it performs the way it was designed to, which is outstanding IMO!
