Can someone tell what these are?

I brought my sail home to clean the sand out of the batten pockets and sew up some tears in the mast foot cover etc etc. Upon removing the six battens and carefully washing all the pieces, I found these three little 'spacers' in the batten end caps. I call them 'spacers' for want of a better term but they look like they have broken off the end of the battens. If they have broken off the battens, does anyone know what the cause is? Did I over tighten?

PS I don't keep my sail at home and I can't remember which three of the six battens have these extra pieces but I think it was from the 2nd, 3rd and 5th longest battens.
PPS The bottle opener and ruler are for scale.

Well I dunno but

- they did not break off the batten, if carbon rod breaks it splits longitudinally
Maybe they are like foam or rubber spacers to stop the end adjustment doo-hickey thingo from wearing the batten shaft?


- the right hand item is not a batten part, it is the most important part of your kit.
A bottle opener.

Yes batten spacers, if they are like most sail battens that need same.
You will soon figure it out by trial and error.
When you put the batten back in each pocket, a few wont have any adjustment left when you screw the tension up and the batten is still slack in its tube. These are the ones that take the spacers.

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mineral1 said...

Yes batten spacers, if they are like most sail battens that need same.
You will soon figure it out by trial and error.
When you put the batten back in each pocket, a few wont have any adjustment left when you screw the tension up and the batten is still slack in its tube. These are the ones that take the spacers.

That's a bit cheap - how hard is it to cut the batten to the right length?

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Mark _australia said...



- they did not break off the batten, if carbon rod breaks it splits longitudinally
Maybe they are like foam or rubber spacers to stop the end adjustment doo-hickey thingo from wearing the batten shaft?

I dunno but they are not foam or rubber. They are of the same material (carbon?) as the battens.

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mineral1 said...

Yes batten spacers, if they are like most sail battens that need same.
You will soon figure it out by trial and error.
When you put the batten back in each pocket, a few wont have any adjustment left when you screw the tension up and the batten is still slack in its tube. These are the ones that take the spacers.

Thanks Mineral1. If you're right (and you sound very confident), then I haven't overtightened and broken the tips off as I feared.

Postscript: After cleaning and sewing, I reassembled the sail, trying to remember which 'spacers' went with which battens and used it last weekend no problem.

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Mark _australia said...

mineral1 said...

Yes batten spacers, if they are like most sail battens that need same.
You will soon figure it out by trial and error.
When you put the batten back in each pocket, a few wont have any adjustment left when you screw the tension up and the batten is still slack in its tube. These are the ones that take the spacers.

That's a bit cheap - how hard is it to cut the batten to the right length?

Even though it's Severne, it IS made in China.

I've had quite a few sails of different brands and the battens have not had spacers.... Severne going the cheapo route?

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Mark _australia said...

I've had quite a few sails of different brands and the battens have not had spacers.... Severne going the cheapo route?

I've seen someone going by the name of Ben Severne leave posts on this forum. Perhaps he may like to add his opinion.

Sorry can't help with the little black widgets, but I like others have noticed it is a severne bottle opener, I was thinking of getting a new bottle opener soon and wondered what people's thoughts on this were?

Do Pryde or North do bottle openers ? And how do they compare? Or should I go custom ? Carbon Art perhaps ?

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DrJ said...

like others have noticed it is a severne bottle opener, I was thinking of getting a new bottle opener soon and wondered what people's thoughts on this were?

Do Pryde or North do bottle openers ? And how do they compare? Or should I go custom ? Carbon Art perhaps ?

Severne bottle openers are most popular in WA and they are good kit. They even come with a free sail hidden in the bottle opener bag!
NP bottle openers handle well and feel great but they break quickly and they are all weird colours. They also only work with NP bottles
North bottle openers seem to be really popular in Europe but not in Oz and I think there is no distributor here so warranty may be an issue?

You could go custom but but geez, you'd want to have used a lot of bottle openers first so you really know what you want - fast opening at all costs? Slow opening but handles nice?