Sailing without battens

I realise this probably isn't quite so critical as in the 4000 or for other fully battened sails, but I sailed a laser 1 with no battens recently.  Although it sailed OK on most points of sail, upwind there was no way to tension the leech so it just flapped continuously (not quite flogging but...) and wasnt great. 

Edited by asterix

Without battens the balance would be off, and the drag from the flapping sail would be considerable. So handling would probably be interesting.

For getting the 600 back into the harbour at Hill Head, with the wind SW (i.e. blowing across the entrance but straight onto the slipway (look for Hill Head on google maps, the one in the solent, my boat is in the dinghy park near the club house, it will make sense then)) I drop the main halfway well outside and upwind of the club house, and sail in on half a mainsail, sheeting in by pulling on one of the battens if necessary, then once past the breakwater i pull all the main into the boat and let the boat drift in on its momentum. If you can't sail the 4k in on just the jib then I recomend trying something like this. Just make sure to leave a lot more space downwind than you think you need to drop the main.

A good technique for coming in with the wind up your backside is to spin the boat pretty-much into wind about 100yds off the beach, let the jib go, get the board right out.

Then if you put the boat onto the beam and push the tiller all the way away from you (this stops the wind pointing the boat dead downwind again), she'll slide in sideways, and you use the main (grab i stright of the boom), to keep it all stable.

If you need  bit of forwards at any point, just pop a foot of the daggerboard back in for a few seconds.

Launching....get everything ready, crew just forward of
the rack, helm climb in over the stern and get
organised, rig depowered, sheet in jib to bear away and
then when ready power up the main...

Don't take the battens out, use the sail controls to de
power with steering..you will find that power is your
friend and the 4000 is far kinder than the Vago when you
have the confidence to power up

Lee shore... keep it simple and stick to basics....drop
the main !..unless you know what you are doing the
handbrake turn is doomed to failure particularly with a
daggerboard and fully battened main!

Get on to the 4000 class association they will give you
lots of help.

The above has worked for me in my ISO/5000 and we have
failed trying lots of different methods ! Good luck