Last day of the sailing year had a nice couple mile race between the Waves. The stock boat got destroyed by the boat with a solid aluminum mast. It wasn't even close. This must be fixed or next season is going to suck.

Has anyone put a stiffener inside the tip to reduce flex. We use some small carbon fiber composite tubes at work and it got me to thinking. If I can get a 1.5 or 1.75 inch carbon tube inside the comp tip and down into the main mast, it could really fix this spaghetti situation. Has anyone tried this? The foam looks like it could be an issie.

I may need to pull the rivits and see how much room I have. I do calculations like this all day for work, so I can figure how much a given size tube will flex. It will be limited by the tip interior features.

Tubes are only a couple hundred dollars in regular stiffness material. It wouldnt be class legal, but this is just racing with my buddies.

Maybe this could go in a new section titled "things sailors think of when the lake ices over"?

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John

Nacra 5.0
CT
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Wouldn't it depend on what wind you were in? If it really started to blow I'd rather have the comp tip and extra flex up top.

I guess it is a trade off. It just flexes too soon for my tastes. It was blowing 20 ish and losing power. If that happened at 30, it would be better.

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John

Nacra 5.0
CT
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A tornado isnt depowered in 20?

This is the little boat, not the Tornado.

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John

Nacra 5.0
CT
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Well I know some A cat guys just take a few strips of carbon and epoxy them to the sides/around the mast to increase stiffness depending on what direction they needed it. You'll have a little more windage but only slightly and you can just keep wrapping it/sanding it down to adjust stiffness to your liking. That's what I'd do

Otherwise wouldn't an interior tube have to touch the walls of the mast in multiple places to be effective? Maybe coating it in high density foam and then trimming it down to fit as you insert it into the mast?

If you’re going to do that, you will defeat the purpose of the comptip which is to be non-conductive. Such mod will also render you outside of class rules.

Therefore, if you don’t care about either of these considerations, just go get an aluminium mast.

jaybird1111

If you’re going to do that, you will defeat the purpose of the comptip which is to be non-conductive. Such mod will also render you outside of class rules.

Therefore, if you don’t care about either of these considerations, just go get an aluminium mast.

The CompTip is an engineering compromise borne from litigation. The best path to improve your situation is to take jaybird1111's advice, instead of adding problems to an already compromised situation.
And it's simpler.

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Sheet In!
Bob
_/)_____/)_/)____/)____/)_____/)/)__________/)__
Prindle 18-2 #244 "Wakizashi"
Prindle 16 #3690 "Pegasus" Sold (sigh)
AZ Multihull Fleet 42 member
(Way) Past Commodore of Prindle Fleet 14
Arizona, USA
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Thanks all. Using the KISS principle is a good plan.

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John

Nacra 5.0
CT
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I agree that modifying the existing mast design is the wrong approach. However, one thing to check is that if the joint between the comptip and the lower mast is sloppy, it can cause the mast to bend excessively right at the joint (basically kink). This can be pretty easily remedied by shimming the joint with filler material (thickened resin / Formula 27).

sm

I have a buddy that dropped his H21 mast and cracked the comptip. A comptip replacement from Hobie was about $1k. Luckily, he is great with epoxy and did a fabulous job repairing rather than replacing the unit. Totally functional but make no mistake, it does significantly change the flexibility of the unit.

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dk

Blade F-16
Hobie 14
Corsair F-242
Mirage 25 (Sold)
Hobie Tiger (Sold)
Hobie Tiger (Sold)
TomCat 6.2 (Sold)
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