Sorry for the late response but here is how I dealt with folding a pentex main and a pentex battened roller-furler jib.

How I daily fold my Main: Remove the diagonal batten and insert it in the second batten pocket. Start at the head and roll down. Never let the roll become non-parallel with any batten. The reason is that if you lay the sail down in an imperfect flat place and it bends, the battens will be twisted (axial twist bend) instead of only bent sideways as they are used to being bent (side to side bend).

How I did a perfect main shipment: I shipped a near new Tornado main. They are only eight feet long. I rolled the sail as usual. I built the container out of two, four foot long sections of sono-tube from home depot. ($8 each)

I lined the joint area on the inside with a sheet of polyethylene that was taped into position using duct tape. The two sections were joined and taped on the outside with duct tape. The sail was bagged, then placed inside the tube and the ends of the tube were covered with Marie Calendar's aluminum Pie Tins, duct taped in place.

The shipping from So. CA to No. CA was done via DHL. The ground shipping would not accept the 8' package, but the air service did accept it. The cost was very reasonable for "second day air."

I just called [color:"orange"]DHL [/color] for you to get an example. [color:"orange"] The maximum length is 108" (9 feet) [/color] . I asked for a quote on 25# package that is 108" x 12" x 12" (that is huge) from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City and the price is $97 with the minimum protection of $100 value.

How I solved my jib folding challenge:
The challenge, take a pentex jib that has battens in the leach that are parallel with the luff (for furling purposes) and roll it up into a manageable size that can be bagged and stored in the sail box on my trailer without creasing the sailcloth.

The previous jib had battens that were a diagonal comprise between furlable and parallel with the foot. So I was able to roll that sail up on a 3" polyethylene drain pipe, loosely enough to allow the battens to comply. But the new jib has battens that are parallel to the luff, nearly parallel to the leach. How was I going to roll this sail, solo , without creasing it.
New Jib in the loft

The solution involves rolling the sail onto a mandrill that is shaped like a fabric bolt. This is what a fabric bolt looks like:

This way, I could keep the edges of the roll from creasing and allow a flat portion for the battens.

I built a rectangular shaped circuit of 3" polyethylene drain pipe, using four 90º segments. I duct taped them together and started with about 7 feet of length on the long sides and a foot or less on the short sides. This rectangle is my bolt. I cut a slot in one of the long tubes to insert the head of the sail. Then I rolled until I got to a batten. Then I gauged how much narrower I would have to make the "bolt" and shortened the short pipes at each end. Once I had done this a few times to get it where all three battens landed on the flat side of the bolt, I finally shortened the length of the bolt to a minimum needed (probably about 6'6").

It is easily rolled up by myself, solo, and easily fits in the bag and in the trailer box where it can not get smashed enough to crease the edges of the flake. The edges of the bolt are 3" so no creasing will occur.

GARY

When rolling the main, I was recently adviced to roll from the top and down. If rolled the other way, bottom to top, this could do bad things to the luff rope.

Anybody who knows something about this?
It's the first time I hear it, but have noticed that many roll it from the top.
We dont usually use bags on our sails. as the trailer is not moved. Rolled from the bottom up, rigging time is cut by some minutes since you dont need to put in the top batten and you can hoist without unrolling the sail to hookup..

I have always rolled all mainsails, Pentex or otherwise, from the top down for storage. I was told to do this many, many years ago (more than I care to remember ) by a fellow catsailor who was also a sailmaker. If I remember correctly, this was to protect the majority of the sail, especially the exposed bolt rope and leech (if the sail was furled the other way), from damage. I don't recall anything about the bolt rope in particular though.

Prior to hoisting, I always unroll the sail completely and quickly check the battens/pockets/stitching anyway. If it's blowing at all much, I'll reroll the main from the bottom before hoisting it so that it can't be caught by the wind.

Each to his own I suppose.........