TAPERED ALUM MAST WANTED

[santone]

One of our Woodpussy sailors is restoring a boat to prepare it for racing. He needs a tapered ALUM mast to be competitive. We've contacted several suppliers without success. Apparently Proctor doesn't have this section in stock. Does anyone have one that's a min. of 23 1/2' in length? Thanks,Tony

[ssor]

I don't know how the weight will run but they make nice aluminum flag poles that would serve as a blank.

[ssor]

here's a link:
http://www.americanflagstore.com/alflagpoles/25ftaluminum.htm :D

[ 02-12-2005, 04:21 PM: Message edited by: ssor ]

[Frank Wentzel]

Here is another good link for taper aluminum flagpoles.

http://www.flagpoles.com/continentalspecs.html

/// Frank ///

[Henning 4148]

Some production boats have got masts which taper at the top, often together with a 7/8 rig. As far as I have seen, they have longitudinal welds in the tapered area. I would guess the process is something like this: Take an off the shelf extruded profile (which needs to be made from an alloy that can be welded), cut out long "V"s, bend into shape and weld together again.

Now, the question of course is where to cut the "V"s, the exact shape of the "V"s and how to weld together again. Get it wrong and either it won't stay up or it will be too heavy and have too much windage to be really competitive.

The whole topic is not very inviting for "try and error" if the boat is anything more than a dinghy and you are aiming for top competitiveness. To get it perfect, you will either need to do a lot of thinking and number crunshing yourself or find yourself someone to do it.

Also, if you operate a bending mast (most racing classes do in some way), the sail cut of the mainsail and the bending characteristics of the mast should be adjusted to each other for best results, which means you would also have to talk to your sailmaker before you start crunching figures.

[santone]

Thanks for the technical advise Henning, but the task is above my current job grade. I'm awaiting information from a couple of suppliers in the UK. It looks like they need about 6 or more sections before they will send them to distributors in the US. We'll keep searching. Regards,Tony