harrier dinghy

Having grown up on super stiff camber induced windsurf rigs (one of my favourites being a 5.2m Ken Black race sail that was stiffer than most due to it's small size), I actually much prefer soft sails on hiking dinghies. One of the things I struggled with when transfering was the significant loss of feel when simply holding the mainsheet versus holding the whole rig. This is particularly so inland with shifty, gusty conditions.

However as soon you are fully powered up you start to get some of the feel back in fully battened rigs and I'm very comfortable with them again. It is simply the case that those conditions are far less prevalent than being underpowered to some degree, so on balance soft wins inland for me.

From a practical 'experience' point of view of sailing a mix of fully battened v soft sails, Dan's comments on 'straight line' speed is spot on. In many ways the Weston Hornet fleet  was a good example to focus on, as there was a good and competitive fleet  there so it was easy to make a reasonable comparison. In the light, flukey conditions, both the boats with fully battened mains could be seen to be struggling - typical northerly/easterly conditions at Weston. However, medium conditions, blowing up southampton water and the conditions were reversed. In both these circumstances the differences were scarcely more than marginal, but even allowing for the skill variation between boats, the advantages/disadvantages could still be seen.

Pfft just let your outhaul out more then?
On boards there is a gain to having your boom on a shorter extension to keep it stiffer.
PLus like you say, there is a bit of aero elasticity working for you in this case a la square top

Fully battened will always be the higher performing option in a straight line when overpowered. With stiff battens and a lot of down haul you get a lot of skin tension which means that the sail, whilst having shape, has some rigidity, and therefore retains its shape when sheeted out to a larger extent than a soft sail. This means that you don't have so much weather helm when overpowered as the centre of pressure isn't moving backwards as the sail feathers (analogous to being backhanded when windsurfing overpowered) all of which are slow. Open performance classes (moth, formula etc) all go to stiff battened formats to maintain that shape stability when overpowered.
The stiff full length thing is particularly useful on una rigs - on a jib headed rig when the main is eased the loss of power when the main luffs is close to the combined c of e of the combined rig so it won't overpower the rudder so much.
The only "problem" with them is that into and out of tacks the rotation of the battens means that the power doesn't linearly and progressively go on and off. And it could be Lairier if left alone on a beach or on the trolley when its windy or whatever. To my mind all of those probs should be easily overcome with technique.

The only other "problem" with full battens on slow una rig boats is that sailing ddw and steering around a bit, you want all the fullness of te luff curve near the mast for a really full forgiving entry that means you don't have to come up onto a very reaching course to get the sail working again from stalled.
Tbh this isn't a concern on shrouded boats like the blaze or goslow where the shroud will knacker the sail shape and inhibit the boom anyway.

I think it's hard to have battens, esp if tapered that are so stiff that you have trouble with the luff being responsive in light airs with no Cunningham on.

There are ways around not having profile stability - namely shifting the whole rig fwd, raking more and sailing with twist, but it's at the expense if performance in all other conditions.

 Hi Jim

Once upon a time the Blaze was launched and it was great fun .. except when it blew .... lots.  The sail was big and 'orrible and a nightmare.  Then one day an early Blaze owner got talking to a friend who had just bought the then new 'RS800' .. he was raving about it and it looked very nice indeed and was great fun to sail as well  etc etc.

The Blaze owner asked his friend about the 800 and why it did NOT have a fully battened rig - (This was in the 90's after all when everyone HAD to sport them of course)  "Don't have a clue" said keen new 800 owner "But we can feather that main nice and easy like and run the boat hard in virtually any amount of wind".  The Blaze owner said "'Cor - we could try that as well !"    And they did and everyone was happy.

The Blaze owners were very happy indeed cos it allowed them to run right across the wind range.  In fact  the smaller 'semi-soft' sail was much faster than the larger nasty old one and the class quickly earned its reputation for being a bit of a killer whenever it blew lots... 

And the moral of this story .. if there is one at all.  Listen to all those with claimed experience but do check out things for yourselves and think a bit for yourself.  If fully battened does it for you... well lovely indeed.  But if trying something a bit different works for you .... just do it !   In this story 'fully battened' did not work like some thought it should (mainly those bereft of real time in the class and on the water).  The sails they said 'should work' were not just 'challenging' to all they were bloody slow as well .   So not slower at all AND much more friendly to use... 

It is not a question of 'right' and 'wrong' ... fully battened or no - it is about being appropriate. 

Mike L  (Off sailing and leaving keyboard until bored again)