Reply To: How much does your mast bend?
Hi Bill,
good idea, yes, it would be great to be able to tell people in advance what mast bends they need.
The current system most sailmakers use to measure the luff curve is o.k. as far as it goes. – find a sturdy fence to put the mast heel under, some form of packing to go under the mast deck bearing, jiggle about until stable (and the right hight), hang a lump of something heavy off the end of the mast, attach string between gooseneck and tip, and away you go—
or not, as by then the whole arrangement has usually fallen off. You need to do this twice ! once for fore and aft, once for sideways….and then measure ‘tip deflection’, gawdelpus, a really fun way to spend a day!
For the record, my converted carbon Finn mast has virtually the same luff curve figures (both for/aft and sideways) as my old favorite Needlespar but it feels, and performs, completely differently. it’s taken me some time to find that the OVERALL mast stiffness (from HEEL to tip) is much more in the carbon mast, giving a much stiffer feel to the whole rig.
So to describe a mast in detail, we need:- Overall bend (F/aft and Sideways), Luff bend (F/aft and Sideways), Tip deflection (Ditto).
Too much info. for most, I suspect.
Perhaps just the horizontal ‘tip deflection’ at a standard (10kg?) weight is the simplest, most direct method, and leave the luff curves for the sailmakers to worry about.
Bob.
