Why are GRP gaffer masts usually wooden?

[Greenheart]

Actually I have glanced at carbon tubes, but almost all sites seem to be producing smaller parts for model boats or R/C aircraft!

Where/who are the makers of simple carbon fibre pipes/tubes (let's say 7m long x 200mm dia), that might suit small gaffers?

I imagine the tapering, complex bend and high profile/minimum weight of a multihull mast puts yours in the costly category, but as you say, the requirement I'm visualising is very low-tech.

 

[DownWest]

There is another aspect of very light masts. Inertia. The motion of the boat in rolling might be much quicker (sharper) and less comfortable.

Obviously, reducing weight aloft is good, but....
I have just made a 23ft mast for an unstayed rig (plus a shorter mizzen, as it is a cat yawl) My first choice would have been birdsmouth, but the extreme taper at the top made that tricky, so I laminated it with a narrow hole up the middle for cables. (As designed)

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Actually I have glanced at carbon tubes, but almost all sites seem to be producing smaller parts for model boats or R/C aircraft!

Where/who are the makers of simple carbon fibre pipes/tubes (let's say 7m long x 200mm dia), that might suit small gaffers?

I imagine the tapering, complex bend and high profile/minimum weight of a multihull mast puts yours in the costly category, but as you say, the requirement I'm visualising is very low-tech.

Ours is just a drainpipe, for cost reasons no doubt. There might be a broken one at Kingston boatyard in Cowes. One was broken there on 2nd Jan 2024 to my certain knowlege. One bit has to be 7m surely

 

[Egret]

Ref DownWest - Inertia - I recall a builder and owner of Folkboats who broke a wooden mast and replaced it with metal, but said that the boat was much steadier with the heavier wooden mast as it leaned over to a certain angle then stayed there, powering through the waves better. Never had an engine, said it sailed much better without.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Ref DownWest - Inertia - I recall a builder and owner of Folkboats who broke a wooden mast and replaced it with metal, but said that the boat was much steadier with the heavier wooden mast as it leaned over to a certain angle then stayed there, powering through the waves better. Never had an engine, said it sailed much better without.

I sail a boat with a heavy wooden mast as well as my complete opposite machine. That is what I find too, other similar classics with alloy masts have a sharper, quicker motion. They are also seriously faster. Every so often the question comes up in the XOD class, why not allow alloy masts. The reason we don’t is that the boats with alloy masts would utterly trash everyone else, and everyone would face a bill to upgrade their boat, at a cost they may not be able to afford, if they wanted to have a chance, in a race. The class would die.

 

[Greenheart]

Ours is just a drainpipe, for cost reasons no doubt. There might be a broken one at Kingston boatyard in Cowes. One was broken there on 2nd Jan 2024 to my certain knowledge. One bit has to be 7m surely

A...a carbon fibre drainpipe? That sounds ideal - will B&Q deliver? But seriously, I was expecting to be directed towards a variety of proven suppliers, probably not British, but somewhere - Far Eastern maybe.

I can believe demand is small and specialised enough for carbon masts to be limited in availability, but it seems like for anything bigger than dinghies use, there's no well-established manufacturer at all. Is bigger stuff still limited largely to one-off race-boat specification?
.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

A...a carbon fibre drainpipe? That sounds ideal - will B&Q deliver? But seriously, I was expecting to be directed towards a variety of proven suppliers, probably not British, but somewhere - Far Eastern maybe.

I can believe demand is small and specialised enough for carbon masts to be limited in availability, but it seems like for anything bigger than dinghies use, there's no well-established manufacturer at all. Is bigger stuff still limited largely to one-off race-boat specification?
.

It was quite hard to find a supplier for a 1.5m length of 50mm tube for our bowsprit. Hence me suggesting a section from a broken rig. Ours is apparently a stock section, but from where, it’s hard to say. Our boat was built in Denmark. They still use the exact same section on the DF28. I am certain that Quorning Boats don’t make it themselves.

 

[DownWest]

Racking my brain (what's left..) for a supplier of kits to make carbon spars. I will tighten the rack a bit more... Think it involved woven sleeves of carbon that one pulled over a mandril.

Long time ago, we made a GRP mast by laying up over a PVC waste pipe. While we didn't taper it, it would have been possible to put 'darts' in the upper tube.

 

[Greenheart]

I'm surprised the call for carbon masts bigger than for dinghies, is so uncommon that suppliers are unnamed, unknown or unremembered.

It seems Rustler yachts use (or can provide) carbon masts, but I would expect their high-end customers to be comfortable in the one-off custom production area.

Given that several Cornish Crabbers Shrimper 21s (gaff rather than Bermudan) appear to have been supplied with carbon masts, I suppose CC should be my first point of enquiry. I had imagined such suppliers were well enough known not to need much researching.
.

 

[James_Calvert]

Selden masts?

 

[Greenheart]

Thank you, not sure how I missed their section on CF masts.

 

[dunedin]

I'm surprised the call for carbon masts bigger than for dinghies, is so uncommon that suppliers are unnamed, unknown or unremembered.

…
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Plenty of carbon masts on bigger (40 foot plus) performance cruisers - into the category where weight savings aloft are more significant, and cost becoming less significant to that market of buyers.
Arcona, X-Yacht even HR amongst the builders offering these from new, also seen on Sirius, Baestevar etc etc.
Clearly very common on race boats and other high performance racer/cruisers.

 

[benjenbav]

Ref DownWest - Inertia - I recall a builder and owner of Folkboats who broke a wooden mast and replaced it with metal, but said that the boat was much steadier with the heavier wooden mast as it leaned over to a certain angle then stayed there, powering through the waves better. Never had an engine, said it sailed much better without.

That’s very interesting. Quite a few grp folkboats seem to have wooden spars, whereas aluminium spars seem more common on wooden examples.

This may just be my subjective view. I don’t have any stats to back me up.

 

[Blueboatman]

I can offer this: The aloft weight of a junk rig sail, with its battens and yard, offsets the inherent lightness of a tapered ally extrusion.
In fact for any given wind and sea state , raising or lowering the sail by one whole or partial ‘panel’ or reef , changes the boats roll moment enough to notice.

As I recall , it was a fair few years ago now