Well John, not much substantial on the subject of relative performance between fully battened and partially battened jibs so far. Perhaps I am right and there have been no or little testing? In what classes did the fully battened and selftacking jib originate? The Tornado went fully battened after the 2000 games with some development earlier. Selftacking came late 2000 or 01 I think. Were there any classes with both fully battened jibs and selftackers before the Tornado? If not, have there been done any testing on this it all?
Or am I (we) missing something which is blindingly obvious to the top "tornadoistas" ( and F-18s since they also are going fully battened ). Perhaps time to contact a sailmaker and get his opinion on the subject.