Phill:
I have also been thinking about a telescoping pole. With the mid pole snuffers used these days, it should be feasible.
Reducing windage is a 'good thing' but if it is on the expense of weight some consideration must be done.
One of the problems would be to find a good solution to replace the stays used from the tip of the pole to the bows. I have sailed an old Tornado with the spi-stays run back to the bridle fittings. Works quite well when pre-bend is induced. Some force would be needed to get the pole out the last centimeters and pre-bend induced tough.
Having a pole without stays at the tip would really make lots of difficulties disappear when thinking about a telescoping solution. Increasing the diameter of the pole would perhaps make the increase in weight smaller, and perhaps also make the front stays uneccesary ?
If pre-bend is not used, the pole needs to be lowered to take full advantage of the spinnaker luff. Would stuffing the pole be a potencial problem ?
Launching the pole would need to be done before you launch the spi, an extra thing that can go wrong while racing.
Sadly, the Tornado class rules forbids such a system. You must have the tip-stays and are not allowed to adjust the pole while racing. But evoulution can not be stopped if such a system is succesful. Ref: Rule 19.b at:
http://www.tornado.org/html/rules.aspI seem to remember reading somewhere that you also was thinking about your own carbon mast ?
