@shk292 Any thoughts?

eracode:

 

@shk292 Any thoughts?

 

Not really sure why we bother. I find this somewhat discourteous.

My apologies for all who have made suggestions and I haven't replied - been a bit busy with work stuff given recent developments and hadn't noticed the replies.  And it's a pet peeve of mine when OPs don't reply so doubly embarrassing.

There are some great ideas above; I don't think fibreglass would be strong enough but the SS items identified should be easy enough to cut down so I will try that as soon as I can get hold of one, I may even have some SS pop rivets in the garage from when I fixed my boat's cooker.

I have sourced an actual batten rod from Gracol having broken one a couple of years ago and can highly recommend this company

Thanks again - I'll investigate further over my locked down weekend and report back

Bung: Is this the application?
https://www.lindemann-kg.de/en/products/2/Segellatten/TRAFLEX/Steckverbinder%20f%C3%BCr%20Rundst%C3%A4be

Yes - those are the ones.  Somehow I lost a pin when removing a batten - the assembled battens are around 15m long so a bit of a problem moving and storing them while the sail is down

I see the pins are 3.4 Euros for a pack of 10 so may order them - except in my experience postage from Germany will be extremely high

Thanks for finding that link, very useful

A quick update - having searched through all the accumulated stuff in my garage over the weekend, the only pop rivets I have use a smaller "nail" size than 3mm, so no good for this application.

I will order one of the gripper clips mentioned above, and make a few spares from this.  Plenty of time to do that during lockdown!

Thanks everyone for the helpful tips.