Connie, you are so right about the Ash being nice. My experience with Ash is from 9 and 10 foot oars used on rafts and drift boats in rivers. It takes alot to damage an Ash oar. I did a web search on battens and came up with some intersting data on battens. Uhlman Sail seems to have the best info on them. According to them the top batten is the most important as it controls how high you can point ( and other things) They recommend to use tapered fiberglass in the top or maybe the top two and regular with the rest. So far that seems to be the best idea. Tapered battens (especially long ones) are very expensive compared to standard and I'm back to 12 hour days. The site also describes in a bit of detail about using different strength battens (top one or two) for different winds... In the bay area, we have some pretty predictable winds. From now until Aprl, no reefs are needed and there are lots of lulls. All the rest of the time it's reef before you leave the dock and hold on. So in this case, it may be prudent to consider two sets of battens (top one or two) I'd probably try to see if I feel a difference and then put one away where I won't remember where I put it. Maybe I'll stick with one set Bill M-17 "Tipperary"