Noticed this year that I had to retension several battens on a sail twice, then I got to thinking that having battens tensioned during the heat of Summer in Florida may not be good for the sail X-ply. Never did it in the past 7 years, but started today. Yeah, have to retension next time I go out, but I normally only use 1 sail per session, and it only takes a minute to retension them. Just do not want to cause the failure of a sail panel due to batten tension stretching it out.

Or maybe, try painting it white?

Thank god for small miracles.

Go back to telling the foremost experts they know nothing.

Now that the sail battens are relaxed, it will be interesting to see when I go foiling next time, if the battens take the same amount of tension as before, or less because the X-ply has shrunk/retracted a little, i.e., unstretched.

mkseven said..
Greater risk is film creasing while rolled with untensioned battens, if there's any stretch it'll be while on the water. Tension then leave em alone, give them a tweak once a year if you wish. If your theory was true then those brands that preset battens with no tensioners wouldn't have done it.

What brands are those, what type of sails, and what type of plastic used for the panels, for the sails with non-adjustable battens?

I have been told race sails usually use mono film, and that it is does not stretch as much as X-ply when loaded with wind pressure making it more responsive. X-ply is made out of two sheets of plastic film glued together with reinforcement fibers in between and the two sheets can moved a little because of the glue.

Hey mark can not see you, maybe get someone to quote you, you are still visible in a quote (but that may change).

Can not see your posts either Imax!

I just wish Severne would supply long enough battens 4 of my overdrives have battens ( 2nd and 3rd from bottom) which are to short to tension up fully.

of course the other option may be to remove the battens and add about 1mm to them after every say 10 sessions, as the sail material is stretching. But only in a hot climate, of course.
I'd like to know how many people do that, and how many just go ahead with purely reckless abandon and leave them alone.
Quick poll..?

Paducah said..
The ads on TV say if your batten stays under tension for more than four hours, you should seek medical attention.

Sandman1221 said..

Paducah said..

Mark _australia said..
of course the other option may be to remove the battens and add about 1mm to them after every say 10 sessions, as the sail material is stretching. But only in a hot climate, of course.
I'd like to know how many people do that, and how many just go ahead with purely reckless abandon and leave them alone.
Quick poll..?

The ads on TV say if your batten stays under tension for more than four hours, you should seek medical attention.

Wait, which batten are we talking about?

Ha ha!, good laugh, thanks Paducah!

I am probably the only one doing it, but who knows, it may be a secret technique used by the PWA pros!

The pros can afford a portaloo with a mini fan .

I never released batten tension on my Xply paneled sails. And they got very hot in my shed, never measured inside temp but it gets to 40C outside.
Not a problem, the sails stretched a bit from new as the seams settled in, but that happened from sailing not from storage.

^^ or possibly stretching of the stitching at seams is more likely?
Surely if the Xply stretched at glue join between film, thered be some sort of delam visible /evident?
If you are only just tensioning battens to remove wrinkles then theres no way itll cause issues or damage sails.
How much FORCE you using????
Sounds kinda Excessive.
Maybe you should put a Loadcell on each batten?
Is there even that much adjustment to get a batten that tight on a modern sail??
And
If it had that much tension, surely itd force an S into the batten???

Sail just wouldnt Sit right or Rotate properly.

Got out today and of course had to tension my Freespeed 7.2, it looked better and the wrinkles I had to get out with the tensioners were pretty minor, and that was starting from loose tensioners! So in the heat of Summer the battens were slowly stretching out the X-ply sail panels. And with a week or so of relaxed batten tensioners, the sail panels contracted/shrank back to normal in the heat of Summer, 90+ degrees F in my garage.

Please, someone not on my hidden list!, you know who you are!

Mark has some issues, please ignore him