Big thanks to Simon from BC for helping me fix my broken batten. If anyone has had the misfortune of breaking a batten on a modern slalom sail you will know what a nightmare job it is to fix it.

Thought I would give you some tips from an expert (not me!)

1. Once you have removed the broken end section, you will be left with a piece stuck in the sleeve pocket. Get a pair of pliers and gently squeeze right at the end of the pocket and start to force the remaining bit of batten out. Once you get a few inches from from the luff pocket, the pliers will be useless.

2. You now need to lay the pocket flat and try and push the broken batten out by pushing something hard against it in the direction on the leech. Sometimes you need something on both sides (top and bottom) to keep the batten bit moving towards the leech. Job is more that half done if you can get this crusty broken bit out.

3. Repairing the batten, is also pretty tricky on these new sails. You will need a new joiner. You want to insert a new batten front section, but do not do it to close to the mast sleeve, better of back towards the middle of the batten. These joiners might be pinched from an old sail or Simon sells them.

4. Measure, measure and measure (then cut!) to make sure it is all the right length. Put it all back together.

Maybe the biggest tip is take an extra 5 seconds derigging these beasts, unlike myself who always attempts to do it in the shortest possible time.

I had to cut a slit in my batten sleeve to get my broken piece of batten out. That was a couple of years ago and so far the batten sleeve is still ok. You probably wouldn't want to do this on an expensive sail though...

Next time I will take it to Simon to fix in his spare time

what is a joiner? i wedged part of a chopstick in ether end & taped it up with duct tape - it is so hard to get them out of the pocket! I thought it was just me!

Was it a carbon fibre chopstik?

And whatever you do, don't let Bart have a go at it first. Funniest lunch break I've had for a while, listening to Bart explain to Fyfee what he did

There's a couple of other ways:

Hold the sail up by the luff an in some cases the broken piece of batten will just fall out.

Pull out the broken batten, put a few drops of superglue on the end, push back in the pocket, then pull out again...