I recently treated myself to a new S1 pro 4.8 and While I was suitably astounded at the light weight I was a little concerned at the lack of reinforcing in the clew and tack area. This got me thinking as to why sailmakers are not looking at battens for reducing weight. The obvious answer is because they'll break. In wavesailing conditions this is true and who wants to be replacing battens all the time and probably repairing expensive sails as well. Just make them bullet proof and forget about it.
The thing is, I mostly use my wave sails for bump and jump stuff on the lake and I maybe wavesail twice a year if I'm lucky, and that would be in small surf only. So I started thinking maybe I could get away with some lighter battens in my manics. The manics are a good sail and very well built but not the lightest sails around. I jumped onto carbon fibre Australia and checked out some carbon fibre tubes and the cost came in at about 70 bucks. For that price I was willing to give it a go.
The battens in my manic 5.7 are 8mm solid fibreglass and I wanted the carbon tubes to be as close as possible to the old ones in stiffness. So being wary of giving my manic the race sail treatment, I opted for 7mm carbon tubes in the back section and 5mm tubes in the front. I made the join slightly forward of where the taper began on the old battens. To reinforce the join, I bound the join with sailmakers whipping twine with epoxy glue over the top. I've had a lot of grief with tube battens breaking at the join in my race sails and I've found this technique to be easy and very effective. None of the battens I've given this treatment have broken as yet.
The results, a half kilo weight reduction. The old battens come in at about 700 grams, the carbon tubes came in at about 200 grams.
Sail performance, the differences were slight but noticeable. most importantly, it still feels like a wave sail. Nice and neutral when you let it off. That part was non negotiable and any loss of neutrality would have been failure. The other differences were the shape stability felt slightly better, so slight it's tough to call. The centre of effort felt slightly lower although I may be confusing this with the centre of gravity of the sail. Biggest and best difference, a noticeable reduction in yawing movement in the upper half of the sail. Basically the sail feels a bit smoother and wants to go forwards.
From a bump and jump perspective, I'm calling it a success as the sail definitely feels lighter and handles nicely. I would feel ok using these battens in the small surf I muck around in but in breaking conditions the old battens definitely go back in.
Great mod Cluffy, been thinking the very same for some time for my bigger wave sail, but don't wave battens generally taper to a flat section to allow the sails to curve like a wing at the front 1/4? From memory my 2014 S1s did.
Maybe Prydes are different?
Really tempted to tweak my 4.8 S1 Pro now, not that its not light enough already LOL
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Great mod Cluffy, been thinking the very same for some time for my bigger wave sail, but don't wave battens generally taper to a flat section to allow the sails to curve like a wing at the front 1/4? From memory my 2014 S1s did.
Maybe Prydes are different?
Really tempted to tweak my 4.8 S1 Pro now, not that its not light enough already LOL
The battens in my 5.7 are tapered as well which is why I moved the join forward slightly to try and promote some more shape in the front part of the batten. There is a bit of difference in the bend of the two battens at the front section but wave sails run so flat anyway that the sail ends up looking the same. Due to the back half of the batten being 7mm and the front half 5mm this tends to promote more bend in the front of the batten. Like I said in the OP draft stability felt fine and if anything a little better. I think 7mm tubes might have been a good call as even though it's smaller and hollow it's full carbon and has superior stiffness and flex properties than fibreglass. I think 8mm tubes may well have been to stiff. The tubes I used are pulltruded which tend to split lengthways when they fail before they snap completely. The manufacturer also sells roll wrapped tubes which are way stronger but a bit more costly. Unfortunately they start at 10mm which is to big.
I will probably give my 6.2 poison the same treatment when I get around to it and possibly my 5.3 blade if I feel like being silly but really the 5.3 blade is bloody perfect as it is and the old saying if it ain't broken... comes to mind. As for the 4.8 S1 pro, The most amazing sail I've ever used bar none. Ridiculously light but also tons of grunt. I was worried about wind range with only 4 battens but as soon as I rigged it I realised this wasn't going to be an issue. The reason is the extra amount of rig and skin tension built into the sail. A fair bit more than the blade in this regard. Battens are a fairly passive form of draft control actually and I feel rig and skin tension are a more proactive form of rig stability. The S1 pro has plenty of both and can be power right up or made soft with a bit of downhaul adjustment. If I didn't like my manic 5.7 so much I would definitely be saving up for a 5.6 S1 pro. What an awesome sail I wouldn't dream of messing with it.
