i own a
2009 4.2 sailworks rev
2008 5 naish force
i cannot work out how tight to have my batterns ... i tighten them untill they pull the rinkles out of the sail??? anny other tips on battern firmness ........ althou it seems like some of the stitching is wrong or somthing up the head of my 4.2 no matter what downhaul/outhaul/batten firmness.. i cannot seem to get rid of these crinkles they are above the secondbattern from the top and run on a 45degree angle up to the top of the mast .. they look horible and it cannot help the sails life .... does anny one else have this problem????

It is a matter of preference, but personally I tend to do this-

Bottom battens you want as much shape in the sail as possible so tension till it takes the wrinkles out then add a turn. If it S's the batten that is too much tension, it should have a pre-curve but not S. You do this as far as the batten above the boom which is normally the one which will S so it tells you whether you have too much tension on.

Top battens you tension just enough to take up the tension in the cloth. You wont get all the wrinkles out, most sails now have 2-3 vertical wrinkles on the top battens but when the sail is on the water these disappear. If you put too much tension on it will pop the batten up or down- the batten should be straight not curved.

Do it enough and you start to "feel" the right load the battens should have to achieve the above, kinda like you get with general tensioning of a bolt.

If you look at the mauisails site it has Phil Mcgain tensioning his sails and on the bottom battens it almost looks like he is going to rip the batten pocket off the sail he uses that much tension.

thankyou for ur advice ill give it a go next time i rig up

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mkseven said...


Bottom battens you want as much shape in the sail as possible so tension till it takes the wrinkles out then add a turn.

A full 360 turn, or a 180?

Different for wave/slalom sails?