>>I'm afraid my maths leave me floundering to make sense of that calculation! Or have I read your posting wrong?

You have read my posting incorrectly. I refer to another post of mine explaining the difference.

>>but because they cannot afford to hold in stock the numbers and the price demanded of them from the manufacturer. As I have said earlier, it is becoming more and more difficult to justify using any thing other than carbon fibre now.


There are other ways of running a stock. One has currently been employed using the three regions of Aus, US and EU. and none of these builders has put anything like you quote into their stock of masts. Not even 1/10 of what you quoted and that includes other parts like beams as well. It will be a long time till chandlers won't stock 80mm x 2mm aly tubes anymore some for 40x2 mm tubes for booms etc.

Wouter