| The 49er Executive has approved a request from North Sails on how they do the top batten on the mainsails. Currently, all the batten pockets are inserted between the films of the 3Di prior to ‘cooking’ and then the batten goes between the films. The Norths group has been working very hard on their manufacture consistency on all aspects of our sails since the Worlds in Nova Scotia, and has found it challenging to tightly repeat batten pocket locations. On the top batten, because it is on an angle, these location ranges result in large batten length variations, moreseo than the battens that run parallel from the luff to leach. This makes it challenging to supply battens and keep the sails consistent.
They proposed to the 49er Executive to sew on the top batten pocket after manufacture. This is how they did in the last version of the FX sails and how 99% of all battens are installed on all sails. They will use the same batten pocket material, just sew it on after instead of insert it between the seams before cooking.
The 49er executive has approved this spec change and we are awaiting World Sailing approval. We are not planning to adjust any limits on sail usage from this change. |
