removing a broken batten

[outhaul]

Too late for me but I found this excellent video from Sailworks.
http://www.sailworks.com/batten-removal-installation

[thombiz]

Being a sail repair guy, I remove half battens often. The answer is simple. Unroll the sail onto a hard surface, like smooth concrete. For this explanation I assume if you are standing at the foot of the unrolled sail, looking toward the top, the luff sleeve will be at the right and the leach to the left. Go up to the broken batten and kneel on the concrete next to the sail at the luff sleeve. Place your left hand on the batten pocket about 12" from the luff sleeve and press firmly with you hand holding the fabric down, but not the batten. With you right hand push the batten end towards your left hand about 4 inches. Now press down firmly with your left hand on the batten and with your right hand pull the mast sleeve to the right. This should pop the batten free from the endpocket. Repeat until you can reach the broken end with needle nose pliers.

Oops. I posted this seconds after your post above. The video shows how to do what I just posted.

[bred2shred]

It all depends on how badly splintered the broken end of the batten is and whether you can get it to move. Also, the sail material at the leech end of the batten pocket is doubled over, so the seams and added material thickness can cause the batten to hang up there. Certainly if you can work the batten down and pull it free with pliers, that is the ideal situation, but it's not always feasible.

I recall many years back doing some repairs on older Windwings where the cam design would eventually cause the forward 2" or so of the batten to snap off inside the webbing inside the luff sleeve. No way to get that piece out without opening up the seam and pulling it out through the side.

Anyway, there are several tricks you can try, but if you end up having to open a seam, it's really not that big of a deal.

sm

[DanWeiss]

A more aggressive solution involves slicing the batten pocket perpendicular to the seams and to remove the broken piece. Insert a new batten in the traditional method. It ain't pretty, but shouldn't cause any performance or durability issues whatsoever. Melting the cut edges will prevent the threads from widening the hole, if you care.

[bred2shred]

[coachg]

[DanWeiss]

[dhmark]

Sails need to be designed better to deal with broken battens. My Hot sail broke one, and could not remove the luff side piece because the splinters hang up on threads or sailcloth when trying to push it out. I ended up opening a small part of the side of a batten pocket on the luff side; due to the Dacron construction, can scrunch up the sail and pull the batten out through a very small opening.
My old WindWings had a small opening on the luff side of the batten pocket, in order to convert the sail from RAF to cam, you'd back the batten out of the dead-end pocket, and reinsert in a different opening into the mast sleeve and put on the cam. Such a feature would make removing splintered battens quick and easy, no sail trauma. Just need a tiny gap in the batten pocket a few inches from the luff end.

[bred2shred]

Or look at changing the batten design. The first thing that comes to mind to me, thinking back to Hobie Cat sails, they used to sell a product that could be sleeved over the batten itself and heated up to conform to the batten (basically just a heat shrink tube).

If this material (or something similar) was placed over the batten, then even if it broke, all of the batten splinters would be fully encased making the batten easy to remove from the pocket. It would also likely help prevent the broken ends of the batten from poking through the sail.

sm

[bamer]