Hello,
Copy of post in Swedish forum surfzone.se
I broke the tips of one my camber batten S-Type 2 times. It is very difficult to find the real replacer even at local north importer. It does not look like the strength or the design of the batten really matters...you get a fiber rod that look like yours but not sure it is the one for it.
Since I understood some of you were skilled in composite, I would like to ask if you think that I could reinforce the tips area (basically 1cmx0,4cm section) where the cam is pushing by adding some aramid sleeve over it? It does not feel right because I don't know how it would bound the the glass fiber rod, but I don't know.
What do you think? I don't feel like this glass short fiber rod is the most advanced design for this type of flex and alternate pressure.
Doed anyone know if someone tried to build up his/her own batten rod from unidirectional yarn? Or advanced tip shape instead of this sanded pultruded glass fiber rod?
i just bought some Kevlar sleeves from solder composite and will try to surround the cam tip of the batten in order to distribute the load a bit differently.
Thank you for your answers.
Kind regards,
Plettil
Post a photo of which you are trying to reinforce... it isn't clear whether it is a broken batten or broken cam. ... ie: maybe an alternative brand cam might be a better solution.
When de-rigging make sure you pop the cams off the mast by hand before letting all the downhaul off as the amount of pressure the cam puts on the batten tips is enough to snap them (especially with larger sails too).
I haven't repaired batten tips , they are made from woven roving's so I guess you could lay up one side at a time , you mite need to soak them over night in resin as they cam be hard to wet out
after saying that it mite be hard to get the rite curve at the mast
I have repaired tips in the past by glueing the broken ends together then grinding a large slot across the break and packing with glass strands and epoxy. I did this on opposite sides and the repair seems to be holding up well.
i kept breaking the front of battens from using the wrong mast for the sail it was to stiff and loaded up the cams to much during gybes , could that be the problem ?
Hey
thank you for the feedback. The mast is North gold and it should fit the North S-Type pretty well. Sorry if my description is unclear. The fiber tip of the batten is breaking at the pushing/flexing point out of the camber. I will not repair a broken tip, this will be spare for a shorter batten for this sail or it's little sister. This one is 7.8 S-Type 2009. I want to reinforce a new fiberglass rod sold by my local North importer. I can note that the original was 10mm x 3,5mm rectangular section when the new one, most obviously the same fiberglass material, is 9mm x 3mm. This tells me that it's resistance will be quite reduced. I tried to look at some engineering beam strain formula with quadratic moment, I can tell that it is a reduction of 1/3...therefore it should be more flexible, but I am afraid that will make it more fragile too... What do you think?
Then my idea is to make a "skin" with one layer of Kevlar sleeve around the rod, in order to improve the capacity to endure the flex and fatigue, I don't want to change the curve, so I will start with only one layer, and quite longer than the contact area, to distribute the load. I also think that I could increase the fatigue resistance by enlarging this tip a bit (16-18mm instead of 9mm) by making some kind of "cobra" shape in the transitional area of contact with the camber. This is full improvisation, I don't have the good enough mechanical analysis skills and experience to prove it will work.
I ordered the material for the price of a fiber glass tip. I just need to invent myself skills in laminating now. 
I will try it out and see...at worst I lost my time (I am on vacation and there is not wind) and a little money, at best I have a good trick to reinforce those heavy loaded camber battens in the S-type north sail.
If you have any advice in laminating Kevlar on a cured epoxy fiberglass rod...it is welcomed. I will used the technique proposed by soller composites, to press it with a shrinkable sleeve instead of making a vacuum bag...
Thanks for your help.
Plettil
Added pict
One is the original shape, the other is a model to shape the sleeve around "cobra" neck. No sleeve there yet.
dont overthink it. Epoxy a layer or two of glass around to stop the uni- directional fibres of batten breaking free. Heat shrink it then go sail. Dont under-downhaul as it eats battens.
Battens will not bend 90 degrees no matter how soft or stiff they are.
Sounds like you are rigging and de rigging your sail the wrong way. Try pulling down the out haul 80mm off final setting, attach boom, pull clew out to full outhaul setting then push camber on, then adjust downhaul to final setting. To de rig reverse. If you want to keep your batten, cut the broken piece off the tip and replace the tube at the other end with a longer piece.
North still use the stupid box battens don't they? no draft tube on them & they are too big to fit a tube over. Other brands also cover the battens with some sort of shrink plastic to make them look like carbon but it also helps stop the fibreglass splintering away & if you do get a break it helps it stay in one piece. I always pull cams off the mast when derigging, it's not good that brands like maui are still saying in their rigging vids to just dump the downhaul & let the cams bang off.
Hey,
Thank you for your feedbacks....overthinking is a bit one of my engineering problem 
when trying to solve a problem... but I know it, so by iteration it become more simple...
I dare to think I don't rig/derig too bad since I have camber sails since more than 25years and the first batten broke after more than 24 use the this second hand sail. I always snap off the cam after loosening the downhaul a bit. For the rigging, I snap them in when the downhaul is set, with or without a bit of out haul. The trick is that for S-Type you need to put it in neutral position, I guess like many other cam sails, to fine tune the out haul. And anyway, the normal tuning is 1cm pulled from the neutral position, so very close to max bend/flex. How do you guys do?
I can tell that the tip sold by the local dealer which broke in 30min in navigation was not meant to be in a camber.
The batten is a tube of black fiber (carbon and glass) and a rectangular glass fiber rod fitted into a round plastic connector (sic!). The glass fiber rod is trimmed down in order to allow the flex....so the fibers are cut/sanded on one side...
Plettil
it's good they have changed the battens, been quite a few years since I sailed norths or maybe they were always that way & the only batten I broke was one without a tube. As Aus4 said the battens won't last bending to 90 deg, you can get glass rod to bend in that radius but it won't provide any support like a batten should. Have a careful look when rigging, derigging and when sailing to see if it approaches that. Sometimes 1cm downhaul can change the sail enough, if it's a sail with very abrupt entry even using not enough outhaul can cause damage especially with sails without many cams as you only have one or two induced battens rotating at a slightly different rate/pressure to the rest of the sail. The only times i've broken battens are on a single cam sail, neilpryde's and norths (at least north have their warranty).
Hello all,
Before sleeving the batten I gave it a try on the water. I am sad and happy in the same time. The batten shows obvious signs of wear after 3h, so I was right, it will not work long, and I am sad because the local store and north sails importer cannot provide me with the relevant tip shaped for this camber batten below the wish!
I was extreeeemly careful when rigging and de-rigging.... See the picture, on the side of the batten that is sanded in the factory to slim it down for the flex, fibers are starting to delaminate after 3h rigged... 
I will go back to the store to show them again, try to get the right tip again, for the 3rd time, and then I will sleeve this one as proposed above.
Any thoughts?! Any one of you knows someone at North Sails sail loft I could talk to, beside my Swedish local importer?
Best regards,
Plettil
Ok.
Back to the shop, they will try to order cam tips, these were plain batten rods. I hope for better.
Nevertheless, since this one was already starting to crack, I made my trick with the Kevlar sleeve. It baked all yesterday in an adhoc 80-100deg C "oven", cooled down. It looks like it is still bending 
. Might be able to check it tonight in high wind or maybe tomorrow.
You don't really care, but I'll keep you posted. 
Plettil
Below in some kind of random order
Dry sleeve and shrinkable sleeve prepared
Wet sleeve
The "oven"
The end result
Tested yesterday.
I am not so sure about the flex it should have, but it has something very similar to what it was before.
The sail is working well, I am not an expert but did not feel a bit difference compared to the original batten.
We will see how long it last.
Kind regards, enjoy your winter and soon spring on the other side.
Plettil
Today it broke. I was on a light wind tuning, 1cm out haul... Max draft....The fiber glass rod broke and some of the Kevlar fibers were teared off also....
Well that was no surprise. If you want to keep that batten, cut the batten at the brake and replace the solid rod at the rear of the batten with a longer piece to make up the original length. This will not change the profile too much from the original batten and will probably be better than the original batten.
