To Scooby and Rolf,
Scooby, I doubt there are any Tornado sailors who know how to specify a carbom mast layup schedule to acheive a desired mast bend. Carbon as we all know is very stiff. To make a carbon mast of the same section that is similiar in bend characteristics to the present Tornado aluminum mast section would require a major reduction in wall thickness. Thin mast section walls lead to crippling and local buckling problems on the compression side of the mast. Crippling and local buckling problems are stability problems associated with thin walled structers and can occurr long before the ultimate strength of the material is approached. The carbon mast wall thickness can be increased only if the section is made smaller which also makes the mast more bendy. A carbon mast section can be designed for the Tornado with similiar bend characteristics to the aluminum mast and no crippling/buckling problems but it will be in a significantly smaller mast section. This is the correct way to go from the structural and performance point of view but it has a major impact on the ONE DESIGN characteristics of the class. The politics of this question are BIG!
Rolf,
You are right in that a lighter weight mast would reduce the pitching inertia of the boat and the boat would go very slightly faster to windward in a chop. Also remember that up there with the mast are the wires and the sails and the battens. The mast itself is probably only half the "weight aloft".
A "recut" mainsail is down in area from a full size sail and I don't think many serious Tornado sailors would go for that.
Good Sailing,
Bill