Some of the reasons for changing to carbon mast....
* Lighter mast, the carbon mast will be around 15 kg compared to the alu mast that is 25 kg. This makes the boat SAFER! This is VERY interesting for non proffesional sailors so they can right the boat themselves.
* Stiffer mast. The current alu mast has an s-shape instead of a normal bend wich makes it very difficult to get a proper sail shape.
* Reduce risk of mast breakage. The aluminum mast is very close to collapsing, one wrong move and you loose it!

/hakan

>>... The current alu mast has an s-shape instead of a normal bend wich makes it very difficult to get a proper sail shape


The carbon mast will have a S-shaped bend in it while sailing as well. This is the result of the way the stays are rigged to the masts on the cats. Carbon or not Carbon is of no consequence.

Wouter

Kevin,
Are you still building carbon boats? email me at c_boyd99@yahoo.com I have a project I want to chat with you about.
Thanks

ref: http://www.tornado.org/html/news_article.asp?ArticleID=41

The carbon mast was accepted by the class, with 71% of the votes in favor of the mast. 187 votes was recieved.


Time to save some money and order a mast from Mr. Marstrøm..

Hello Hakan,
There is one very important point you did not mention. 1. The price of the Tornado just went up $5,000 plus US dallars. The boat is now a 30,000 dollar boat instead of a 25,000 dollar boat.
2. The weight of the carbon mast will not be 10kg lighter than the aluminum mast. Maybe a 5kg reduction is possible. If the new carbon mast is made to the same section as the present aluminum mast, it will be very very stiff. This means a new mainsail luff curve is required with much less curvature will have to be developed for the carbon mast and here goes the $$$$, dollars, running away again. Also the stiff carbon mast with reduced bend will make sails less versitile. Now the Tornado sailors will need light wind sails, medium wind sails and strong wind sails; the $$$$, dollars run away again.
3. The reason masts of any material bend in an S shape with spinnaker up is that the spinnaker hounds is too high above the main hounds, too much cantilever. Lower the spinnaker hounds is one solution. Another very simple and inexpensive solution is "back stays". Then you might as well go masthead with the spinnaker.
4. The present aluminum Tornado mast does have very little structural margin with the spinnaker and double trapeze. This is no surprise. A slightly larger aluminum mast section would be one answer. The cost of the new extrusion die equals the cost of one carbon mast.
Summary: What it comes down to is the Tornado class wants a carbon mast no matter what. To have it bend properly and have a thick enough wall so that the new mast does not have local buckling problems, the carbon mast section MUST BE SMALLER with a thicker wall. Then the class can have a mast that is bendy as the present aluminum mast and is tough at the same time with a reasonable wall thickness. The new smaller section carbon mast just made several hundred Tornado masts, maybe thousands, of aluminum Tornado masts not competitive. For a class to go from an aluminum mast to a carbon mast is one tough question. It has major impacts on many facets about the boat. It is not nearly as simple as "substitute carbon for aluminum and save 40% in mast weight and go for it".
Good Luck,
Bill

This i'm sure is just barely relevant to the subject, but as someone who has just become part of a partnership to start racing in the olympic class with an old, albiet still new in packaging tornado, this is kinda dismaying, because when this becomes the standard we will not be able to afford the change. The price of entering this game is daunting enough already, how much can the cost go up before you virtually eliminate new sailors entering your class?

Cost of the carbon mast from Marstrom will be held at 2860 EURO (~$3500 USD) with all fittings. Cost of an alloy mast with all fittings is nearly 1700 EUR0 (~$2100 USD)...a diff of $1400...where is the $5000 increase coming from? Whole boat is ~$22,000 USD...about a 6% price change for a carbon mast rig.

Minimum weight to be 15 kg...end weight to be set prior to final production by Marstrom.

Why do you say the section thickness will be the same as alloy, thus making a very stiff stick? I see no mention of it in the proposal:

Rule Changes

Mike.

Josh,

the whole point is to stop people buy specially designed masts of alloy that are of limited availability. This creates an unfair competition. Also, the fact the top teams spend big bucks on numerous alloy section masts until they find a few they like (extrusion inconsistency), makes it quite expensive to be competitive.

Finally, equipment costs of an olympic campaign are a drop in the bucket with respect to the costs of training/travelling globally for at least a few years. Greg Scace, a USA campaigner until recently, told me his teams budget two years ago was $100,000 USD for ONE YEAR!!!...and that would ramp up significantly the year prior to the games. His main sponsor (and employer) got caught in the dot-com burst and dropped their committment. His olympic dreams died that day.

OK so maybe i misunderstood, i was under the impression that everyone was already limited to alluminum, because of the talk of the carbon fiber being "accepted". So is it more accurate to say that before mast was limmited only by leagnth, and this new rule limits the material as well? Sorry for being mostly ignorant, but sometimes I really have trouble getting past the price tags. To me $1400 is ALOT. But of course I have no sponsors, and by myself i probably never will.

I have an 8 year old boat with one of the original pre spin masts.... I don't double trap with more then 380 lbs on the boat because I fear I will break it going up wind....(Advice of Darren Bundock) Down Wind.... I blow rotation to allow the mast to rotate to 90 to keep it together in a breeze.

When I break it.... I would much rather put a carbon mast on the boat and get a (new to me).. slightly used sail from someone on a campaign. The technology will be superior to anything else on the market.

If I sell the boat to a cruiser... an aluminum stick will be just fine for them as well.

The Olympic guys want a carbon mast for two reasons:reproducibility and cost control based on the class president's letter.

Reproducibility... They seem to collect sticks to find the proper one for them.....They believe that the carbon masts will be far more reproducible and so cheaper in the long run. Cost Control.... Well funded campaigns (the Brits) have a mast program on going so the cost of playing just went up enormously.

With respect to a the cost of the boat... an I20 with carbon mast is close to 16K.... Is a Marstrom worth a 5 or 6 K premium?? ... ABSOLUTELY... the boat is bullet proof for 10 years and holds it value longer.

With respect to a campaign... the cost of the boat is trivial compared to the cash needed for sails, travel regattas and coaching.

Take Care
Mark

Clarification...only Alu Alloy masts were allowed until today. Now carbon is permitted, but only masts from recognized builders. Marstrom will be the only recognized builder for two years (at least!) to allow them to recoup tooling/development costs. Price is to be held at the 2800 Euro amount unless carbon costs rise significantly.

Sad fact is, $1400 is peanuts to a serious team...that's the reality of competing at this level. Good news is there will be lots of very good alloy tornado masts flooding the used market in the coming months...plenty to keep the average joe happy for years to come. But no new extrusions will be made.

How soon will this effect things realistically, I know my freind, I guess its ok to call him my teamate now, ordered a carbon mast from europe lsat year sometime, and is still waiting to recieve it. I know he's not the only one, Roy Seaman ordered the same mast at the same time and is also still waiting for his. Will this be the case with these as well?

Hi Mike,
It looks like Marstrom is doing everything he can to get the carbon mast on the Tornado. Marstrom brought the point up in the first place. Marstrom is the only manufacturer of a carbon mast for the Tornado. Marstrom's web site talks about the problems with the aluminum mast. Marstrom is initially pricing the carbon Tornado mast well below a normal price based on mast size. "He is working the problem".
My comment on mast section: Mast section or any beam/tube section is described by its outer dimensions. In the case of the mast we would be talking about the major axis length and the minor axis length. When I say same mast section, I am saying same mast outside shape. If we want to talk about mast stiffness, we talk in terms of moment of inertia which brings wall thickness into the discussion.
Carbon fiber is ten times as stiff as aluminum. Therefore if we build a carbon mast and we want it to have the same mast bend stiffness/softness as an aluminum mast, we will have to go down in mast section, shorter major axis and shorter minor axis. Reducing wall thickness to compensate for a 10 times stiffer material is not an option here. The resulting very thin wall thickness would cripple/buckle under normal mast loads. A smaller mast section in carbon with a thicker wall thickness would solve the strength/stiffness trade off study for the Tornado class. The only problem is that the Carbon mast will make obsolete hundreds of aluminum Tornado masts.
Bill

I will reserve my opinion until I see a new Tornado Carbon mast in action.

I have been playing with a shortened Marstrom's A-Class carbon mast with a cut down Tornado sail for a couple months so what I have learned may be of some use.

The mast is light and stiff. It's about the same weight as a Laser mast

It is partially foam core. The foam area and the carbon thickness seems to vary along the length.

The mast is stiff but more flexible above the hounds.

You set the mast curve with diamond wire tension. I can set mine to match the luff curve in a Tornado sail. I have heard some scary numbers like 900-1200 lbs from some A-catter's. I am using ~300-500 pounds.

For the first couple of weeks, steel wire stretches a lot compared to the amount of adjustment. For a Tornado, I might go with rod.

The Diamond wire tension is controlled by one bolt at the base of the mast. It's kind of wild to set everything up on a windless day and then make the hollow spot in the sail appear and disappear by playing with one bolt. We are not talking about a lot of adjustment, 2 turns or less. As I write this, I'm thinking "Maybe I should mark the bolthead to see if it's backing off".

Compared to a tapered Tornado mast, the carbon mast is a lot less automatic. It's not going to flex and adjust the sail shape for you. The mast will hold the shape you set and expects you to adjust the shape as needed. It's like an extreme version of the pre-bent Tornado rig.

On my setup, over sheeting has turned out to be a no-no. Sheet in hard on a puff and I slow down.

Now, if they would just fit a captive ball base to the Marstrom Tornado. (I can use Marstrom's base, I just don't like having an adventure every time the mast goes up or down.)

Interesting thread, but I think we`re missing the point here with respect to the reason for the change.
From what I`ve read here, the main reason seems to be to control costs at the cutting edge of the sport, where only 1% of the competitors play, and are paid to do so.
The carbon mast will prevent competitors such as the British Olympic team from HAVING to have a "mast program" and spending millions on developing their boat. Rest assured they will find another direction to spend that funding, since they have it.
It won`t make sailing a T more expensive for the weekend warrior - the ally masts will remain class legal for a time at least, and there will still be sailors who are self-funded and sail with the old rig. Those who want to sail a Worlds will spend the money, since it`s a fraction of the real cost of sailing the boat.
What happened to the Tornado by becoming an Olympic class was that the cost of campaigning a boat rose substantially, as happens in all classes. The cost of a Laser has gone up disproportionately with the increase in technology required to build one - they should be the cheapest boat money can buy. It is, after all, only Tupperware with a dacron sheet for a sail on a round tubular alu. mast. You could not design a cheaper boat if you tried, yet they are damn expensive for what you get. This is what Olympic status creates - the perception that the boat is worth more than it is. The sad thing is that the market tends to support this ridiculous notion.

Back to the T - it has long since been a boat that the average cat-sailor can buy & compete with on equal terms to the top sailors. The Tornado Worlds were in South Africa a few years ago, and we have 10 or 12 Marstrom Tornados here, most with the new rig & spinnaker, yet South Africa is no longer listed as one of the Tornado class member countries.
Why ? Because the cost of competing at that level has made it impossible for these sailors to continue without sponsorship, and sailing does not appeal to sponsors in this country since their return on investment is very low with respect to tv coverage etc. It is not worth these sailors effort to even be members of the class anymore.
What this means is that only those with Olympic ideals will continue to campaign the boat, and the boat will no longer be marketed towards, or sailed by, the regular weekend sailor.
The cost saving made at one level of the sport will become a cost increase at the base level, but that won`t concern the class association or the builders - the top level players will buy a new boat every 2 years at least.

If the Olympic selection committee ever choose another cat for the event other than the T, the class will disappear in a vapour trail, with only emty check-books as evidence it ever existed.
Pity, as its a magic machine.

Steve

>>>Carbon fiber is ten times as stiff as aluminum.

This is simply not true !

Check again Bill.

Stiffness to weight may be 10 time more but stiffness in absolute sense is actually comparable.

I think the tornado will keep going for a while longer, and it will be going alittle faster as time goes by.
Mr. Roberts is correct that a smaller/potentially faster mast section could be made in carbon/epoxy. Don't know if they will do that though.
i think it is wrong to say carbon is 10x stiffer than alu. First of all carbonfibers are flexible and come on a roll while alu. comes in a billet. so carbon in it's raw form is actually soft and pliable. Carbon/epoxy masts built with the same shape as alu. bend to the same curve as alu. they can even be built to the same stiffness as alu. the differnce between the 2 is in the reflex characteristics, and the amount of bend. Alu. just keeps bending and it doesn't spring back as brightly as carbon/epoxy.
there are all kinds of ways to use carbon too. There is a kind of nylon resin that is used with it to get rid of the brittle effect. some bike handelbars use it. a bike made of the carbon/epoxy developes hidden cracks if the bike is dropped causing the bike to be essentialy unridable.

What CF Modulus of Elasticity are we talking about from website below, it varies from 200 GPa to 350+ GPa (Alum = 69 GPa)
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/1320/


Also perhaps this may help http://www.int505.org/CJ-CarbonSpars505v3.htm

Steve: I agree with you on many points. I dont think the class would vaporize if it lost olympic status tough.
Ref: British Tornado class

Besides, the Tornado has 'always' been an olympic class. That is not new, but the cost of an campaign has rocketed..

What do you think the ITA should do to attract new sailors (while keeping old ones) to the class ? I'm not thinking about olympic campaigns, but regular sailors.

The ITA has to act soon, becouse the olympic charter says that only boats with an widespread use are candidates. Today Germany and UK have quite strong classes, but even the germans had to cancel this years national championship due to lack of interest (20 boats wanted to sail, but the rules demands 25)..

Constructive comments ??

In kiting we used the following numbers for carbon tube. Afterall these tubes are not 100 % fibre but a composite of abou 65-75 % fibre and 35-25 % of low modulus resin. Aluminium can of course be used in a pure form of one single material (alloy additions don't really change this) .

Carbon 80 - 125 GPa
Glass 35 - 48 GPa
Alu (alloys) about 70 GPa (never used twose by the way)


From these numbers the two are quite comparable.

Weight of Carbon = 1470 - 1600 kg per cubic meter
Alu = about 2350 - 2700 kg per cubic meter.


This data came from EXEL a big producer of carbon tubes for kites and buggy kites.

I think that we both may be correct here. You stated the specs of pure fibre and I refered to the spec of a layup with resin. It is possible that over the years they were succesful in replacing resin with fibres making the fibre resin ratio alot higher and creating higher stiffness of the layups. I don't know. It has been several years since I was active in kiting.

Wouter