A set of Flattens revives a J100 Jib

At the end of 2013 PFT  installed a set of Flattens into a "tired" J100 jib.

Along with the fantastic news that the Flattens appear to have given the jib a new lease of life PFT were extremely excited that the existing internal pockets were used for two of the Flattens. The upper batten had to be external as the sail originally had a vertical batten.

Here is a short clip of the sail taken in November 2014 in the Solent, UK.

How to Roll Flattens and How NOT to roll Flattens

Now that the Flattens are becoming more and more public, Dan and Simon thought that they should show a few clips of the Flattens so that everyone can see the technology first hand.

This first clip shows a standard Flatten (FL050, for boats from approx. 30 to 55ft) rolls. The key point here is that as the leading edge splays open (as it does when it comes toward the headfoil) the Flatten naturally wants to roll up.

Once rolled, you can see that the Flatten is stable. This means that the furled sail is held tighter than it might be with no battens at all, and certainly tighter than it might be with a furling batten that wants to straighten out.

With the Flattens in their open state, they are stiff in both directions. The main difference to the Flattens and a traditional batten is that they if they bend more than a certain %, they simply fold up.

For this reason, the Flattens are only used in the flatter sections of the sails. In this clip you can see the bend characteristics of the FL030 Flatten (for yachts of approx. 20 to 35ft).

And like any non-furling batten, if the Flattens are rolled the "wrong way" or if you "fold rather than roll" by hand, then the performance could reduce. In the next two clips they show what might happen if the Flatten is folded at the leading edge (rather than "splayed" as in the previous video) or, in the very unlikely situation, that the Flatten is rolled the "wrong way" the Flatten is obviously not perfect after, but can still be used in the sail if no others are available.

 

METS 2014

Now that we have managed to catch our breath after an amazing METS 2014 and having been delighted to be nominated for a 2014 DAME award, although we were disappointed not to have received further recognition for our Flattens, the rest of the show could not have been more successful.

At times we had people standing three deep on the Contender stand wanting to hear more about the Flattens and how they work. And perhaps the greatest compliment came when one of the most prestigious suppliers of the current furling battens said that they felt that “the Flattens might finally be the first furling batten that really does perform as well as a non-furling batten, yet holds the furled sail as tight as having no battens at all”.

So, after our initial disappointment in not taking home an award, both Primrose Fry Technologies and the Contender Group came home feeling extremely confident that the Flattens really are the first batten that can give the sailor the ultimate performance of a non-furling batten when sailing combined with the ability to furl the sail tightly when not needed.

All in all, a fantastic week….All that remains now is to start processing all the enquiries from various sailmakers around the globe

Moving Office

As of the end of October 2014, our office will be moving a few miles down the road to:

Primrose Fry Technologies Ltd
2 Lippen Cottages
West Meon
Petersfield
Hampshire
England
GU32 1JW

Until we get all the office landlines installed, please contact either Dan on +44 (0) 777 864 875 or Simon on +44 (0) 7775 758 794

Flattens nominated for the prestigious 2014 METS DAME awards

Simon, Dan and Oscar along with their distributer, Contender UK, are extremely proud to announce that their Flattens have been nominated for the highly prestigious DAME awards at the 2014 METS.

This is an annual award where the nominated products must meet the highest demands of the judges in all areas such design, functionality, ease of operation, innovation & originality and cost verses performance.

Hundreds of new products were submitted for this award and these have now been whittled down the last few, of which one will be selected as the winner of the 2014 DAME award on the first day of METS in Amsterdam on the 18th November 2014.

Dan, Simon and Oscar look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam on the Contender BV stand in Hall 01, stand 516

Primrose Fry Technologies annouce that Contender UK will be distributing the Flattens

Its with great excitement that Primrose Fry Technologies can announce that Contender UK with be distributing the Flattens.

After years of developing the Flattens it was a natural step to work with a global company like Contender UK and Alastair Shires (MD of Contender UK) was just as keen to work with PFT to distribute the Flattens.

The Contender Group covers the majority of the areas of the world that will be using the Flattens.

Contender will be distributing the Flattens directly to the sailmakers and can be contacted on +44 (0)1329 849 036

A short(er) story of the work done so far develping the Flattens

For those who only have a few spare moments in the day, here is a quick overview of the key points that have come out of the last two years of development that Dan and Simon have done, that ultimately led to a J-111 in the USA, called "Spaceman Spiff" winning her class at Quantum Key West Race week earlier this year, with a full set of Flattens in their Light-Medium Jib. The feedback from the trimmers and sail makers on and off the boat was nothing but extremely positive and the Flattens had allowed them to trim the sail in ways that were not possible with existing furling battens systems. The full story can of course be seen on previous posts here.

Here are some of the images from that week, from North Sails library.





J-111 "Spaceman Spiff" with NS L-M Jib with full set of Flattens









 

J-111 "Spaceman Spiff" with NS L-M Jib with full set of Flattens

close up of Lower Flatten on J-111 "Spaceman Spiff"






Furled jib on J-111 "Spaceman Spiff" with full set of Flattens



  

Up until Key West, most of the work done was on J-111's and J-109's in the UK, where the unique design of the sail pocket allows the Flattens to be simply retrofitted to any appropriate sail. 

2 off 1000mm Furled Flattens

When Simon and Dan started this project, they were pretty sure that the furling ability of the product would be good, but were not 100% sure about the sailing performance. However, these doubts were very quickly dismissed when images of the J111 sail were compared to the original design files, and showed to be "almost spot on".

So here are some images that we can show, that will hopefully show why PFT's confidence level is so high. Most of the testing that has been done has been in lighter winds, which as anyone who has used a furling batten knows, is the hardest conditions to get them to work as they should (i.e. produce a tight furl whilst still giving the correct profile for the flying sail). Testing has of course been done in all conditions up to near gale force and were all very successful; "the Flattens were faultless and very good value" to quote the owner of the boat that was racing, shorthanded, offshore. In these extremes of conditions, the simple fact that the Flattens are "stable" in both sailing and furled forms, makes them unique and will give the end user the advantage they are looking for.



J-111 Code 3.5 Jib Furled with Full set of Flattens

J-111 Code 3.5 jib Upwind with Full set of Flattens in 9kn TWS

This sequence of images were taken in early 2012. They clearly show the sail shape, both furled and unfurled.


Here is a clip, again from the J-111, sailing and furling with a full set of Flattens in about 9 knots TWS.







As mentioned, Dan & Simon have also been developing the Flattens for In Mast furling. This testing is still on-going whilst they concentrate on the final spec for the baseline Jib Flattens but is a short clip showing some of that work, done at Seldon Mast in the UK on their test rig.