DaySailer.org Forum

The pockets are there, it doesn't look like the ends were ever sewn together to keep the battens in. I'm also fairly certain the battens I got are not the proper size for the sail, 2 seem to fit ok, but the other 2 don't. Bought the whole boat and sails on craigslist. Shouldn't there be some kind of strap on the sail to hold the battens in? There is on the Hobie waves I learned on.

Depends on the sailmaker. Sail that was on my boat simply had the end of the pocket sown shut, but an opening above, so you could angle in the batten. (In other words, the pockets widened towards the end, an only the bottom half, the width of the batten, was sown shut. Simple, but effective.

The four battens should be of different length. I think the two middle ones are longer (if the sail is class legal). If you got a set of four middle ones by accident, you can simply make your own battens from anything suitably light, flat and not too flexible. The sail that came with the boat had long lost the original battens and someone had replaced them by a motley collection of thin pieces of wood. I wanted something that better filled out the pockets and took two five-gallon paint stir sticks and ripped them to half the desired width and glued them together, sanded them down, rounded all edges and corners and coated. Those lasted me until it was time to finally replace the sails (well, technically, the sails should have been ready for replacement from day one, but I decided to make my beginner's mistakes with old sails).

Cool thanks. Found one 39 inch batten at west marine just now so now I'm good I have all that I need. But will they be ok with the end of the pouch open? Doesn't seem like it would be terribly easy for them to fall out but it worries me a bit. Should I just tape the ends closed as i put them in?

You need something to hold them in; if it's not an offset batten pocket like on my first sail, where the batten will wedge itself in, you might simply sew them shut. Tape isn't strong enough, I think. You can leave the battens in the sail - as long as you roll or fold it so the battens lie flat.

Ok thank you so much for the advice. I looked again and where the batten goes in at the leech the pocket is wide, half is sewn shut, then there is the open part the batten goes into. I believe the batten goes in then is pushed down in the wide part so the end of the batten is now against the sewn together part. I didn't notice that before, but it's a good tight fit and I believe that is how you secure it.

Looks like you are all set.