For details see: www.tornado.org

Well, there _might_ be a new mast is a more proper way of saing it..

The class is voting over the new mast now, but it might go both ways. Remember that the class originally voted to keep the old rig instead of the new rig with double trapeze and gennaker. If ISAF had not insisted on a Tornado with larger sailarea, gennaker and double trapeze in the olympics, the Tornado would have stayed with the old rig..

What I'm missing is more information and discussion about the proposed mast. Is it faster, how much faster, are new sails needed etc..

While beeing a somewhat active Tornado sailor, I'm not sure if a carbon mast is worth the money if it doesnt make the boat significantly faster. With 180Kg on the righting line, we have no problems with righting

It will be exciting anyhow to watch the results of the ballot!

Gee, wheres are all the anti-Carbon T people?

My impression from the Marstrom sight is that top teams regularly must purchase several alu extrusions to test sail them before they find one or two they like in flex characteristics. This because consistency with alu is very hard to achieve, where as with carbon this is not a concern. Flex characteristics can be set at layup time, making masts suited to the team's individual needs (of course with the context of the class rules). Though per unti cost is higher incarbon, if you only need one versus 4 or 5 alu...you've save money.


BTW, Marstrom lists a carbon mast for tornado on their site...for over a year now in anticipation of a class change.


Mike.

MauganH17: I guess they are on some inland lakes in middle europe, still grumbling about the new rig

Marstrøm has made carbon T masts for quite some time, and he is all for the change (he is the one who submitted the proposal to the ITA). It is true that the masts differ, and that olympic teams buys different masts to find one they like.

But for the weekend warriors, and other T sailors who like to compete now and again it is a lot of money. These are the people who might vote against a carbon mast..

I would like to see the performance gains documentet before I shell out the money for a carbon mast. There has also been a quite long and heated discussion on the German T forum:
http://www.fly-tornado.de

If I were a weekend-warrior Tornado sailor, I'd be all for the carbon masts. All the "big money" teams would be snatching up the carbon masts and dumping their 4 or 5 aluminums masts at a price even I could likely afford

Give me CARBON

As a weekend warrior, I would not upgrade to a carbon stick. I also have no delusions about competing against the Olympic pro's so that is not a problem. The problem comes up a few years from now when some of my weekend competitors have carbon sticks when they turn their boats over and now they have the latest in sail shapes which are built for the carbon mast. Now the class is split at the grass roots level and participation may suffer... In an extremley tiny North America almost non existant class the effect is magnified by such an expensive changeover.

Still, If the boat is going to remain Olympic... it probably needs to continually upgrade...

You mean like the Square Top, Self-tending Jib, Spinnaker & Pole have "split" the class

I think it's a positive change...esp. since a lot of other classes are going this way (I20, F18, F20 etc).

Mike.

Yes, the rig changes did split the class. It seems that 1/2 of the boats did not upgrade to the new rig and stopped racing the boat. EG, several of the Canadian sailors took the rig change as an opportunity to retire. The Detroit fleet also seemed to melt away after the rig change as well. There was at least one boat at the Michigan Catfight which was still using the old rig in a portsmouth race.

Remember, that the only class racing on the continent is the July-Kingston Unlimited, August-CORK II, December-Tampa, January-Miami, and February-Miami OCR event. The international sailors competed in the Florida races while the Canadian races drew at most 5 boats.

BTW, The I20 was always delivered with a carbon stick in the USA. The F18’s BAN carbon sticks. My point is that nobody was forced to junk their existing rig and upgrade to a new rig. The spin upgrade and self tacker were half the cost of this mast proposal AND you really increased the boats performance for your money. The mast CAN’T be that big a deal!

Still, I don’t think it’s a big issue in the US and Canada (unless you happen to own several alu masts). Only those teams on Olympic campaigns will switch over to Carbon and they are playing a different game then you and I, so it’s not a problem sailing against them. I think the international class should consider alternatives which address this pending competitive imbalance for regions where they do have a strong weekend warrior fleets (Like Germany. (Perhaps Gold and Silver fleets) Then again… that would be a novel idea for the class … addressing the concerns of the ordinary guy!

Proud member of the Society of Ordinary Tornado Sailors
Founded at the Miami OCR 2004

Take Care
Mark

interesting.

In the UK before the upgrade, the ONLY time T's were sailed was for the selection cycle and then they would flood the market once the trials were over. Since the rig change we now have a VERY good T fleet in the UK.

I'll be buying one when my son grows up if whe wants to sail with dad....Might be a few yearsm, he is only 3 at the moment......

There are some more information about the T Carbon mast and the vote on the German class butt. web pages.

Ref: http://www.fly-tornado.de/?site=news#id89


If you dont grok german, http://babelfish.altavista.com is helpful.


Doesn't say anything about increased performance tough, only one-design considerations and safety..

I have to agree that the rig changes was a good thing for the T, but are not sold on the carbon stick yet. I would really like to see some performance comparisons between alu. masts and carbon masts first.

Dont get me wrong, if the carbon mast is consistently faster, I'm all for it!

Hello Rolf,
Carbon is not magic. A carbon mast alone is not faster than an aluminum mast. The only way that a carbon mast or any carbon part can make a sailboat faster is by reducing weight. The weight savings due to a carbon mast in the case of the Tornado class is going to be small because the aluminum Tornado mast has already had every excess ounce of weight squeezed out of it. Also to realize any weight savings due to a carbon mast in the Tornado class, the class rules, minimum all up weight, must be changed. If the minimum all up weight is not changed, it will be very difficult to find any boat speed improvement at all. Also any different material mast, especially carbon, will have a different mast bend characteristic under sailing loads. Then the boat will have to be reoptimized and new sails, diferent luff curve etc, will have to be determined. This will take a year or two to work out and many many suits of experimental sails, many dollars spent.
The Olympic Tornado is already faster than any other 20ft boat so why induce this major upheaval in mast rigging and sails for a maybe 0.001 reduction in PN?
Bill

Not so....

You will be able to design the mast bend characteristic(s) you require as the carbon can be layed up as required (eg more carbon wher fittings attach and less where there is little stress.

Bill: I was under the impression that carbon masts was better when beating into chop, as the leverage of the mast was less. I tought perhaps this was where the performance might be improved..

If you read the german class ballot information. They say that the carbon mast is neccesary to stay competitive, but dont present any empirical data for this.. I dont know any more.

They also say that it will indeed be neccesary to re-cut the mainsail. But that this is a feasible job to do on a present mainsail.

Regarding weight, this is information that is not finalized. It does not say anything about changing platform weight in the proposed rules (as far as I can se..).

Interresting times..

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

As I recall, (it may have changed) isn't there a minimum tip weight of the mast.
Should the minimum tip weight be maintained? the advantage would not be all that much, if kept.
In other words, would or should the minimum tip weight of the mast be maintained?




http://www.sailing.org/classes/classrules/2004/TRNRules04.pdf
k. With the mast in the condition given in 14(i), in a horizontal position supported at the bottom
end of the extrusion and at the bottom edge of the top measurement band, the weight
measured at the top band shall be not less than:
i. 10.5kg for masts with internal jib halyards.
ii. 10.25kg for masts with external jib halyards and locking devices that are not connected to
the mast in any way.

The proposed changes to the class rules on http://www.tornado.org does not say anything about the weight (as far as I could see). So we dont know much about the weight or tip-weight of the new mast.

I guess it will be lighter, as easier righting is used as an argument for the change (and the change would be meaningless if weight was maintaned, even tough the mast would become amazingly strong).

Bill: You are probably right about the re-cut. Unless the whole front panel of the sail was replaced (most Tornado mainsails has one panel running from the bottom to the top along the luff). The outcome would anyway be uncertain and probably not competitive.
If the mast is accepted in the ballot, it will be interresting to measure the performance between the two masts..

Regarding politics, yes this is a quite hotly contended subject. One has to wonder where all the messages on the German T-forum discussing this subject is. They all disappeared last month.. Politics ?


Interresting times!

I don't sail a Tornado so what do I know. But a couple of observations.

At the highest level, the inconsistency of one aluminum mast vs another is absolutely critical. Top Tornado sailors (and sailors in other Olympic classes w/ aluminum masts) talk about "finding" their mast 1 year ahead of the Olympics. And then they have to waste countless hours / days / weeks / months of valuable practice time learning to sail with their back-ups in case the break the first one. A mast can be the difference between winning and losing. At this level repeatability matters, and carbon is nearly perfectly repeatable.

Bill -- of course all sailors don't know how to specify layups, but that is a ridiculous argument. Sailmakers and sailors specify the flex characteristics and the engineers do the layups.

I don't know if the change is good for the class or not. I am sure there are trade-offs, but lets recognize valid arguments on both sides.

There is something called hoops when looking at carbon masts.

These are rings of carbon perpendicular to the length of the mast. These do not introduce significant stiffness to the mast but do increase wallthickness that is needed to prevent various buckling modes.

This amount of hoop (some call them loops) can also be used to get the mast to satisfy the mast tip rules that may be present.

Wouter