John,

I have not concluded on much yet, except on your point 5. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Hope Mark is back tomorrow.

Finer entry? Why is this not possible without full battens? Longer life, perhaps? The low foot.. no big deal in my opinion, as there are more turbulence and less wind further down. But no reason against having the same geometry/outline with or without full length battens.
All in all, with over 600 views on this thread, no reports have been made on superior performance with fully battened jibs. Why? Perhaps becouse there have not been done much testing on it? I dont know, but would dearly like to.



BTW: I asked earlier wether there had been selftacking fully battened jibs before the Tornado. I got an reply by e-mail explaining that the RC-27 had a fully battened jib from the late '80s and the Supercat 22 from '91.