I thought it was already one design. Do you mean now it's "one manufacturer"?

Yawn; T was NEVER one design until now.

You could design Tornado hulls with a tolerance of 10mm here and there. Enough to make things interesting. Lots of things not regulated too strictly in the class rules and thus open to development. Now it goes one design, but I dont think it is finalized exactly how strict one design it is going to be.

I think it was the T used(?) to have a measurement tolerance of 1" in section at each hull measurement station.

Cheshirecatman

Yes, but A-cat mast won't hold up F16 use (2-trap, spi, etc)

The lightest F16 carbon masts (without corrector weights) are about 26 lbs or roughtly 75% of an alu F16 wingmast. Note that such a carbon F16 mast requires corrector weights to be F16 compliant ! A compliant F16 carbon mast is about 28 lbs (80%)

The F16 carbon masts so far have proven to hold up under general abuse. I think since 2002 two carbon masts have been broken, one because the diamond wire snapped.

Wouter

A standard BIMARE 18HT section should be fairly good for the N20 (it is considered too stiff by a large majority of 18HT owners).
It scales up at just under 16 Kg or 35 lbs (its "heavy" weight is due to its "low" profile - 145 x 59 mm).
In Europe the complete mast retails at 3,300 EUR (USD 4,290)

Wouter, is there a formula to calcualte the weight of a mast (lets make it a uniform tube) based on the tip weight; I can work out a rough approximation based un the summation of torques at points along the tube but that will not be accurate enough for some....

In Madrid, the T-class presented their new plan. All hulls will come from the same mould (nearly all already do), one mast has been chosen, one supplier of foils, one sailmaker with only one pattern, one supplier of hardware and all of it mounted in the same place on every boat. They're calling it "total one-design" to distinguish it from the previous one-design Tornado.

I'm not Wouter, but the answer is no.

A tip weight of 10.5kg could either be an 11 kg mast (1 kg extrusion with a 10kg weight at end) or a 21kg mast with a constant weight throughout, or for that matter a 1T mast with most of the weight at the base.

For the most part I'm fine with the aluminum mast. Most likely there will be more consistency from mast to mast, I'm guessing the weight is comparable. The one thing I'd question is the diamond adjuster block being made of brass (from the Infusion assembly guide). How long before the threads are toast? I'm assuming there's enough miles on the Infusion to validate it, but still...

This thread went through a lot of side-bars, still waiting to hear exact weight difference and cost of new boat, from people "in the know" (i.e. Nacra Europe).

I'm with you John, seems the price has been asked more than a few times, as well as WHO tested the new rig, etc. . .

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this one of the reasons why the T went to a carbon stick? Wasn't it because some campaigns were ordering multiple alum sticks and picking which one worked for them since they all differred so greatly from one another?



and I second this statement.
(or third..whatever)

So I'm curious on this decision...doesn't the class membership need to vote on such an important issue? We had to vote on previous, less important issues.

Decisions with class member consulation (unlike the I20 going to a new alu mast) has always been an important aspect of the T-class...to me any way.

Maybe, there is to be a NEW class called the "one-design Tornado" which will be used by the rockstars for the ollies and campaigns. All current T's will remain "Tornado's".

I dont see how they can do such a thing and still qualify as an international ISAF class. Surely there will be a vote, and I think the changes will pass. If current tornado class members dont have this information, I think they should ask the ITA (I let my membership elapse when we sold the boat).

Undecided, you are partly right. The top teams went through a lot of masts to find the one suiting them bests. Dies for extrusion change over time and together with other variables this was a big enough concern for top teams to spend funds on. What caused the definitive change over to carbon masts was when some teams began developing special profiles and alloys which others could not buy on the market.

So if I snap an aluminum mast (any type of boat), do I get any credit toward the purchase of a replacement if I send back the broken parts?

Or should I just drop them off at my local metal salvage station and get the $ per kg credit...?

What's the current cost of aluminum?

And what do I do with a broken carbon mast (presuming it can't be repaired)? Grind it up and use it as landscape mulch?

You cry for a while, try to mount the parts over the fireplace at home only to cry some more when your wife makes you throw your creative work in the bin.
Seriously, they can often be repaired. If not, put them in storage or donate them to a project.

Where did the carbon mast break?

Is there enough left so it might be cut down for use on a different boat?

Sell it to a big boat campaign as a carbon boom.