The wash cycle didn't actually seem that dramatic, but shortly afterwards a wild flapping at the leech showed that something was wrong! The centre batten had not survived the Baltic Sea washing machine and was broken. We recorded the replacement and repair in this tutorial.
Can I continue sailing with a broken batten?
Ending a great session prematurely because of a supposed trifle? Presumably very few people always have the right spare parts with them and can install an adequate replacement on the beach. Whether you can get back on the water depends primarily on which batten is broken. Battens in the top and lower leech often have such an important support function that the sail is simply no longer manoeuvrable and can even break. If a batten in the centre area is damaged, you can at least try to get back on the water.
Depending on what type of batten is broken, where the break is and whether you have parts with you to improvise, a temporary repair is possible:
- Tubular battens can be stabilised by inserting a normal batten if necessary
- Flat battens can be "splinted" with duct tape and a stable piece of metal, carbon or another batten. The challenge here is to get the parts back into the narrow batten pocket
Did you know? In contrast to standard battens, tube battens are hollow on the inside and have a larger diameter. Tube battens are mainly used in performance-oriented freeride and camber sails, as they are very stiff and can therefore stabilise the sail profile in the best possible way. However, tube battens are also significantly more prone to breakage than standard battens.
How do I get a splintered batten out of the batten pocket?
Depending on where and how the batten has broken, glass fibre or carbon splinters can make it very complicated to get the front piece out of the tight batten pocket. The collected tips from the surf editorial team:
- Slide a sawn-off tube lath over it, tilt it and pull it out. A thin, rigid plastic or metal tube also works
- Slide another thin batten with double-sided tape next to it and try to pull with it
There is often no getting round the fact that you have to gather or "crumple" the sail a little if you need to remove the rest of the batten. If all the pushing and squeezing (see gallery above) doesn't help and the splinters from the breakage get caught in the fabric, sometimes the only option is to reach for the knife - even if it hurts. A small cut can be made to open the batten pocket in front of the healed end so that the rest can be pulled out forwards with long, pointed pliers. A small cut does not affect the durability, a piece of self-adhesive Dacron prevents fraying afterwards.
We have documented the replacement of a batten on a 6.4 GA Sails Hybrid in the photo gallery above. The batten tensioner and connector systems differ depending on the manufacturer.
You can buy spare parts or a complete batten in well-stocked surf shops, for example in the Example here. Alternatively, an email to the manufacturer often helps.
