I know that in the past there have been two different mast weights on the Taipan, although AHPC has been selling only the (heavier) Superwing mast for the last 10 years as far as I can determine. That is for both singlehander and double hander versions of the Taipan !
It is ONLY this Superwing mast that we have a F16 class usage agreement for. The lighter mast was never included in the deal for two reasons :
-1- At the time of F16 class creation this singlehander mast was not longer supported by AHPC itself. They had no stock of them and no intention of reproducing them.
-2- The lighter 1-up mast for the Taipan looked already to weak on paper to take the F16 rig with the spinnaker. At the time we were even a little uneasy about the Taipan standard (sloop rigged)mast holding up.
The lighter Taipan 1-up must was never seriously considered for the F16's and I have really no dependable data on it. As a result I can not have mixed up these two weights as I don't know the Taipan 1-up mast weight to begin with.
Wouter
Gato,
There seems to be some movement on this front.
I for one am really hoping that we can somehow organise a new alu F16 mast design that is down to specs. Because every analysis is showing that 14.5 kg for the BARE tube is really possible. Even it is redesigned to have a little more stiffness side to side.
Thus making the bare alu tube only 4.0 kg heavier then the F16 compliant bare carbon tube. As the older Superwing masts for sloop boats indeed were.
Lets keep our fingers crossed everybody !
Wouter
P.S. Everybody is noticing the
BARE
qualifier in the statements made above ?
Fully rigged masts will come out at higher weights although the difference between alu and carbon won't change as the same fitting are used on both masts !
Gato, Valteri, etc.
Please contact the builders and suppliers for information as all will be more than happy to discuss history, options, prices or whatever else you may want to know.
Forums are great places for misinformation (given with the best intentions usually though)
A die will vary with age, but there has been nowhere near enough masts built out of the AHPC dies for this to happen. Extrusions will however, very from lot to lot. The current extruder of these sections was choosen due to their relatively tight QC. The last batch of mast we recieved was just slightly lighter than the previous batches, but still within the QC range specified. Bends can vary also due to variences in the material properties, but this is much less likely. Note: carbon can also vary significantly. Non-spec materials are cheaper but we have gotten in some batches of material with significant variances in the areal weight. Process variances can also change the weight of each piece.
I am 68 kg and can right my boat by myself with out any aids in about 10knots or more of wind. I try not to go over in less, but carry a small trash bag just in case.
Note the Tornados have some acess to their boat statistics. These are from the class submitted measurers certificates. Keep in mind that these are extremely expensive platforms that the owners then have to pay to get certified. As we get certs on boats these could get published through the class but right now this information does not exist in a reliable format, so please be patient.
I don’t know exactly what to think, just had a phone call from Valtteri and it seems we have a spar with a profile of 145x61 with a wall thickness of 1,85mm. what spar is that? If the answer is “just a teardrop away” (Shrek II) for somebody please give the answer.
I can't identify it. Not a section that I recognize.
Some additional info on my mast (2003)
I took cut-off I have of my own mast (2003) and that of another (halveway 1990's and now partly my mainbeam) to digital scales at the food section of my supermarket, these are annually calibrated by the national authority. The cut-offs are about a meter long so it is decent measurement. And I took the average of the readout on different scales.
Results after multiplying to full length :
My mast (2003) = 14.332 kg / 8.5 mtr
Used older mast (halveway 1990's) = 14.930 kg / 8.5 mtr.
Accuracy should be within a 100 grams amplitude around this average (< 1.5%)
On average the weight 1.721 grams/mtr = 14.631 kg / 8.5 mtr and that is consistant with other mast measurements that were send to me over time with the exception of course of the masts currently in Finland.
My mathematical model of the mast (developped in 2002) gives 14.229 kg/mtr = 1.674 kg/mtr. and is therefor consistant (meaning < 5% offset) with the cut-offs that I have at home.
Of course these measurements are for the bare mast tube sections, no fittings whatsoever.
Wouter
Gato posted those measurements based on the damaged mast the other two that we have here are 150x63, they all seem to have 1.85 wall thickness though. The damaged section also seems to weight more but it has not been on totally dry conditions so I can't say if that is caused by it.
okay,
Lets echo this info to
the background
for a while and see what comes up.
Wouter
It’s quiet. If we considered your weights Wouter I have the feeling that the final spar would be something around 18kg. There is a lot of SS details on the mast and they are heavy. It’s stupid that the damaged mast seems to be of a different profile; otherwise it would have been easy to strip it and put it on the scale. I could do it with the Sydväst mast but for the moment I don’t find it necessary. Still it would be interesting to know what profile the damaged one is and why two different profiles on two spars shipped together.
Yes of course. I have all these things in excel sheets somewhere but from the top of my head a typical lean fitting out of the mast adds between 2.5 and 3.0 kg in total and adds about 0.8 kg to the tipweight. Of course this does dependent on the fittings chosen and also very much on the density of the foam blocks to seal the mast. A set of carbon spreaders arms is just significantly lighter then a set of proctor spreader arms. Fittings do include items like halyards and blocks.
I think a mast fully fitted but without side-stays and forestay should be around 18 kg when it is fitted out in a lean manner.
I seem to remember that the Tornado full carbon mast was 15 kg when fully rigged and that mast is only 0.5 mtr taller.
A compliant F16 carbon mast will be just under 14 kg.
Again, the differences in weight between carbon and alu only come from the bare tubes as all the fittings are pretty much identical. That is the reason why we are looking at bare tube weights and not full mast weights (except tipweight as those are implicetly fully fitted mast measurements)
What are fully fitted A-cat carbon masts these days ? Around 10 kg ?
The old alu A-cats masts were slightly lighter then the superwing alu, but not by much. Actually there are some A-cat alu mast designs that were actually heavier then the superwing.
Formula 18 masts are on 3.5 kg to 4.5 kg heavier then the F16 alu sticks so on average 22 kg when fully fitted. These masts are only 0.5 mtr longer and carry only 13% more sail area.
I seem to remember the old Alu Tornado masts to be heavier still (then the F18's), somewhere around 24 kg. Rolf will know that info from his head. I have it archieved somewhere but no time to dig for it.
Masts without diamond wires like the Hobie 16 are typically noticeably heavier then the masts with diamond wires. They need thicker walls to withstand the bending loads. This is why small boats like the Hobie 16 and Prindle 16 (but not nacra 500) are more difficult to right singlehandedly then you would initially expect even when their masts are shorter and their rigs are smaller.
Now you've got the full picture.
That is something that interests me as well, if such a thing occured. It is however outside of my sphere of influence. You will have to contact your supplier directly for that.
Could it be that he mistakenly grapped an old alu A-cat mast ? I mean the difference between a 150x63x1.6 and 145x61x1.85 mast is not easy to spot when not laying a tape measurer over the section.
Wouter
We have a much clearer picture after Valtteri has been spending his night digging. There are still some questions that remain unclear, among them the wall thickness. But be patient, we strip the spar, cut it to small pieces and x-ray it if necessary. Guess there will be some news before tonight, but we are walking shaky ground now.
Btw. not easy to spot but when you put the fittings from another spar...
I asked Hans to post here and clear out the different profile issue.
I think that we need to strip those masts to find out for sure what they weight, I'll do that to my mast next weekend and hopefully Gato will find time to do so to their mast. I'll also use different micrometer to re-measure the wall thickness, at least what AHPC has in stock doesn't match to that. So more data coming in during weekend.
That is a good point ! Hadn't thought of that.
Wouter
Be sure to vile a small bevil (ramp) to the edge of the mast section. The vernier measurer (micro measurer) will maeasure the wallthickness some 10 mm away from the edge anyway. The saw cut itself (shards) can easily add a few tens of mm wallthickness and 0.15 mm difference is well inside that range. I had that problem just yesterday when keeping apart a tube with 2 mm wall and a tube with 2.5 mm wall for my landyacht mast. I didn't think the shards would pose a problem with (a large) 0.5 mm difference in wallthickness but I must admit that I was wrong.
Wouter
I’ll find the time, we are getting 24 new fresh hours each day after midnight. Don’t worry Wouter, we are using micrometers of good quality and we will not do it alone, too much work to strip and put back the things again.
The person who has the answer will not come forth and give it. A lesson already learnt is always ask for the specs when ordering, check that they are the right ones and verify what you get. As Wouter said, it’s very difficult to see the difference between the two profiles and a mistake can be done by accident or by somebody sitting on a pile of useless spars good for nothing and are tempted to pass one on from time to time...
I stripped down all fittings out of the mast and bare section weights 15.6 kg's, I believe that Gato's mast weights 15.5 kg's because we had 100 gram difference while fitted. I talked with AHPC and they said that typically mast section weights 15 kg's so basically we are quite close to that number well within manufacturing process variation, even though masts shipped to Finland seems to be on the heavy side.
If typical mast weights around 15 kg's then I don't think that I'll have too hard time righting (with aid) but I do see the difference quite large to carbon one (typically over 5 kg's), maybe with hand picking you could get better section but for shipping abroad that is obviously not an option. Also we got shipped one mast that is totally different profile (I was told that it was taken from wrong pile by accident), so obviously I'm not totally happy about all this. Happier than after weighting the damaged section though.
Hopefully one day we have enough real measurements available somewhere so that people can read that instead of hear say on open forum (let's face it even this post is such <img src=
alt=
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If there is interest, I can help out creating an online database on this and other measurements next winter. Measurers would submit the alread quality controlled data and we could keep measurement certificates online. Perhaps an idea?
NB: Next winter!
This mast was broken in a land accident.
It was a (I was told) light weight single handed AHPC section.
I never thought twice about it. I used it in all conditions, single handed and two up.
I never used a spinnaker with it, but did use a hooter a fait bit.
This section is 5.15 mts(515 cm) it weighs 8.5 kgs.
My vernias are not the best, but the wall thickness is more than 1.5 mm and less than 2 mm. Most likley 1.8 mm.
You do you sums.
My calcs suggest that would be around 14.2kgs for a 8.6m mast section.
Similar to wouters calc on the 150 x 63 section.
Are you the mast is the lighter Tiapan section.?
Similar to wouters calc on the 150 x 63 section.
Are you the mast is the lighter Tiapan section.?
That's right in the range of what we have been getting. The history being spread around here, is that the 2 sections are the same with the exception of the added riblets to increase stiffness. From a cost point that makes the most sense as well.
I'm again somewhat confused, are you getting 14 kg's section with riblets or without?
With. I do not have a copy of the QC sheet from the last batch, but this right about what all of the ones we have recieved haved weighed. I beleive this is near the low end of the range, but the acceptable range was not very wide.
With. I do not have a copy of the QC sheet from the last batch, but this right about what all of the ones we have recieved haved weighed. I beleive this is near the low end of the range, but the acceptable range was not very wide.
Ah well, then there is again bigger difference to what we have. I guess that yours are not hand picked either because you are ordering those in batches.