Actually the fact that the Tornado has diamonds makes it easier to control the dynamic bend.
Have a look here for the Tornado mast static bend tests
http://www.tornado.org/html/carbon_mast_data.aspAlso a Tornado mast is nowhere near the "longest in the business" nor is the Finn "among the shortest" as you say...
A Finn mast is just over 6.5m long and a T mast is from memory 9.2m.
As an aside, we had two masts built for an AC boat, we wanted them identical. Guess what! they were, both in static measurements and in use. The methods used to measure those masts were the best possible. The 5 sets of spreaders, running backstays, jumpers, checkstays and other bits I can't really talk about here gives an AC mast a lot more variables than the single set of diamonds on a Tornad mast. Yet its possible to produce two masts with the same bend properties?? defies belief hey!!
So its possble with a Finn mast (6.5m) and an AC mast (32m) and the Tornado mast is somewhere in the middle of those two in length...
Also the section size of the Tornado mast is much larger than the finn mast, both in real terms and as a % of length compared to the finn mast.
Oh, and using extruded alloy tube as an example isn't so good considering alloy tube inconsistencies is the whole reason we went to carbon in the first place!
