Finally the new Tornado 1 design mast is on sale.
It weights in at 15,3 Kg (33.7 lbs).
Its retail price is EUR 3,250 (plus VAT plus shipping) for the complete mast (carbon mastfoot, carbon spreader, carbon rotation arm, SS fittings, diamond wires, cunnigham and main hailyard).

Thats about US$4400 in Europe before shipping and tax. I'm not sure this was a good move for the Tornado class. It's not a weekend warrior boat anymore.

This has been discussed earlier, before we knew the exact price.

Ref: Tornado mast thread

WOW. That's slightly more than 1/3 the cost of my brand new F18. What has been the Tornado group's reaction to the cost?

Daimond wires, eh? Seems the 2005 class rules mandate rod rigging for the diamonds (on the carbon mast only).

This price, if correct, seems alot higher than originally proposed when the class was voting on this issue. I seem to recall $2500 being mentioned (perhaps this was for the un-rigged mast??), and that this price was to be held steady for 2 years by Marstrom, during their exclusive building licence period.

At the US Nationals in Houston last month, the guys were all buzzing about the carbon stick. Many seemed resigned to it but some were hesitant to jump into it right away, as the sails will need some development cycles to refine the cuts. Also, no one has raced a carbon stick against the alloy stick yet, so it's unclear of the performance advantage at this time.

The upcoming back to back OCR's in Miami in January might see a few carbon sticks...

Mike.

It could be argued that the modern tornado hasn't been a "weekend warrior" for many years now. If you are trying to be competitive, you need to spend the big $$$ even without the carbon mast issue. The $4400 price represents about 15% of the new boat price, after substracting out the cost of an alloy mast. That's not significant to the "big guns" when factored into a campaign budget.

On the plus side of the issue...there will be a flood of extremely good alloy masts hitting the "weekend warrior" market, complete with extremely well refined sails with very low hours of use on them...as the top guys transition to the new stuff.

Mike.

I just joined because I saw this thread. My hobby is building sports and racing cars and my profession is creating anti-hacker security software. (No I will not hack you.)
I haven't really sailed in 30 years. I wanted a fun sailboat, because I grew up racing FDs. After doing some research on sailboats, from cat boats to catamarans I purchased a Reg White Tornado. Then I bought a new mainsail from Charlie Ogletree at Ulman Sails, who I found knows a lot about these boats. The engineering side of me immediately started to wonder why the design was not better. As far as I can tell I bought the best catamaran design, but there is room for improvement. So in between car projects I have tinkered or come up with some thoughts that maybe you experts can comment on:

1) Daggerboards - I built a high aspect ratio daggerboard and fitted it to my Tornado. What a difference! Wow! That boat really pointed and drove hard.

2) Mast - The Alu mast is too heavy. Carbon is cheap to buy at $30 a yd. The boat needs a short cord length carbon wing mast with weight and balance restrictions so people can make/repair one at home and be competitive.

3) Cross Beams - There are heavy and wobbly. Allow wing beams that are again restricted and cheap.

4) Tampoline - It is heavy and stops the boat in a sea. Spec out a net type trap.

5) Deck - Spec out some wind seats for main area so that wives can sit comfortably on the boat and then support the hobby. (That's blastphemy isn't it...)

Right now the boat is for trust funders, but it could be cheaper and faster and thus be even that much better. As far as this beginner can tell the Tornaso is the best. Make some changes or my guess is that a cheaper bost will replace it in the Olympics and then it will die like the FD did.

Want some real improvement ?

Redesign the hulls of the Tornado along the line of the newer hull designs that are coming out in the A-cat/ F18/ F16 classes.

Wouter

Wouter: Would it be possible to have Phill scale the Blade to 20'

Jelliot: If you have an old Reg, the crossbeams probably are the old, small diameter type? The Marstrøm beams are a magnitude larger in diameter and stiffer.
Are you proposing adding wings to the T in exchange for a less wide platform, or do you want wings to make it even wider?

When the class has decided for carbon masts, amen to cheaper ways to get a mast!

Daggerboards has been proposed before. Two axis rotational daggerboard system, pre-fabricated so you can just slide them into the centerboard well without structural changes. Kick up and everything.. I dont remember exactly what the increased performance was supposed to be, but seem to remember 5% better to windward?
Other systems for retro-fitting daggerboards is also possible of course.

Trampoline to heavy? Is your trampoline old, or made of solid cloth? Most tramps today are buildt with small masked netting, but the aft-beam might slap a bit in chop. Was this what you was thinking of?

Wifes aboard is fine, but changing the boat for them?? Where was you planning to install the sheltered W.C?

If we change the boat to much, is it still a T??

Expensive? Yes, very much so, but second hand value is excellent, so you can reclaim most of your money if you sell it. The problem is getting new teams into the class, with the high entry price. Used, competitive boats are not going cheap.

You might consider joining the unofficial Tornado e-mail list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TornadoCat/
(Mary and Rick, hope you forgive me for directing T-sailors to the T-list, and possibly hijacking them..)

Don't be silly, Scooby. Why do you think we have our Great Links section? We try to provide sailors with as many contacts as possible. If anything, it might be the Tornado sailors who do not want their e-mail list address published to the world.

Wow $4400! Assuming they are using normal carbon prepreg, the material cost would be under $300. Tooling is a large fixed cost however. Is the 33 lb. weight fully rigged with all fittings? Seems heavy to me. Jelliot - good luck with your modifications. There is a majority of Tornado sailors that are only into match racing and to them the boat is only athletic equipment. In reality, it's a cool design that has many more dimensions to it than just the Olympics. For instance, you can build you own wood hulls for only $2000 and about 300 hours time.

Kevin

Quite the contrary, everybody with interest in Tornados are very welcome, and the list is not a secret (I hope). It have been operational for a year now, and currently have about 100 members. I think the adress has been spread by 'word of mouth', not any announcements.. Poor marketing is probably what we Tornado guys do best

Please spread the word about the list if there are T-sailors/fans/wannabees/has-beens/weekend-warriors/hobbyists etc. etc. etc. out here..

The ITA will probably come with an official forum/list/something in the future..

As Rolf mentioned, Dagger boards have been experimented with and we may well see them in the future. Some have also looked at a plug that slides into the C/Board case and has a high profile C/Board slide in.


On its way



Also as mention you will find that the Reg White probably has the smaller beams. The Marstrom have larger diameter and stiffer beams as well as improved mounting points in the hulls. Platform allot stiffer.

I would also bet that in about 4 years time we will see Carbon beams as well.



Some A class cats in Oz have tried wide spaced netting. Looked cool. Kind of like the skipper was floating between the hulls. Unforunatly did not add any real speed advantage but did loose lines through the net. Also is not class legal for T's



I didn't here that OK



If you look at the big picture the T is not that expensive at all. The T is cometitive at an International level for 7 to 10 years were as many other ODs are internationaly competitive for 1 to 3. The resale value on a T is also very good.

However whilst looking at the price of an Olympic campaign, the price of the boat is insignificant. Olympic sailing is not like it was many years ago (true amature sailing). Now you have to be fully professional to just be in the hunt.

Need a coach, work with sail makers and on boat development, travel extensivley around Europe. Will also have to factor in loss wages as you will be sailing or campaigning for sponnsors full time.



Hi Wouter,

They have already done that. It is called the M20 Boat is quicker than the T but not by very much at all and is also allot more expensive.

Seriously the M20 is not a modern hulldesign in the way of the Flyer, Capricorn, Blade F18 or Blade F16

Marstrom just upsized their A-cat hulls, which are not very succesful in the A-cat fleet.

M20 is special because it shows Marstrom excellent handling of materials but in the way of design it is not special. And honestly Marstrom never was much of a catamaran designer, an excellent material engineer, but not an excellent boat designer. The proof is in the Round texel result over the last years and in the race results in general. And of course the Tornado is a Rodney Marsh design and all improvements in the Tornado design are made by the racing crews, not by Marstrom.

Wouter

Agree Wouter, But not that much out of date..... More 90s and streets ahead of the T in design. Still a great boat.

Would like to see how a scaled up 20 foot Capricorn weighing 110 kg and 10 foot beam would go.

Steve, I agre completely with this.

However, my main problem with recruiting new T-sailors here in Norway is finding affordable boats for hobbyists/weekend warriors. These guys are willing to spend US$7-9000 on their hobby, and there are not many competitive boats around in that price range.
Sure, there are some Reggies, Sailcrafts, GLAS and Denninger&Male around, but as we have discussed earlier, the new rig imposes a load that probably is to large on these platforms? This leaves us with the Marstrøm platform, whose older boats are excellent, but they are not on the market for a price these hobbyists are willing to spend on their hobby. Sure, you are lucky from time to time and find a nice Marstrøm for a reasonable price, but it's not easy to build a class on that basis as it's just one or two such boats a year like that here in northern europe.

If the entry cost was lower, I could have had 3-4 boats on the water in my rural norwegian area in a year. In three years there could probably be 12-16 boats. (This is 'guesstimating'). The people who talk with me, and are serious about getting into the class, checks prices. They are astounded by the difference in the F-18 market and the Tornado market! Since there's just 1.5 T's and 0 F-18's around, they end up with a Melges24 or something instead..

Just established (26-30 years old) dont put a Marstrøm higher on their priority list than replacing their 10 years old car. We have a sport class on our local school, for talents who want to combine education and training. A couple of these guys approached me regarding doing a three year Tornado program where they would spend 25% of their scool hours on the water plus regular sessions after school. It didn't fly, as they could not get sponsorship for a competitive boat, 16 years dont have that kind of money, and their parents could not afford one either..

The carbon stick has not made the class easier to 'sell in' to prospective sailors either.

Last season some guys borrowed our old boat (with homebuildt polyester/glass hulls, grossly overweight), and had a good time learning how to sail these boats (had never sailed before, and have learnt to sail on a T, how cool is that). Now they want to be more competitive, and need new hulls to be so. The only option they can afford seems to be homebuilding a new set of hulls. How will we ever get teams like this to buy a carbon stick, which is what they will meet even on the local scene in a short time?

The brits have been the fastes growing national assoc. the last years. It will be interesting watching them for the next couple of years, as they probably will be the indicators for how the carbon mast is recieved.

Going for carbon beams would not be worth it for the class in my opinion. First we should explore syntethic rigging and get rid of all that weight aloft.

I'll stop now, been rambling enough. But I think entry price is a real problem for our class.

I read what I want to read. I will go where I please.

Please do not feel threatend by other forums, they will cross populate. Someone here may need specific T info and go there, someone with a T may buy an F16 and so come here.

Sorry, Scooby, I should have been responding to Rolf, not to you. Your post got in between with the quote from Rolf, and I didn't notice it was a quote. Just a slip of my eye.

So I will repeat that on this web site and on our forums we try to provide as many links as possible to all web sites and forums and sources of information that could be of interest or use to catamaran sailors. In fact, I consider that to be one of the primary purposes of both my magazine and this web site -- to improve and expand communications throughout the catamaran community. So I have no idea why you would think we would feel "threatened" by other forums.

I personally think that a 20 foot Capricorn at 110 kg and 10 foot beam would be slower than an 18 foot 110 kg Capricorn at 2.75 mtr width and with an adjusted rig. Such a boat would be stronger and easier to build at 110 kg as well.

Interesting is that currently the M20 is measured by Texel at 120 kg's, they started at 108 kg. It proved quite difficult to build the M20 at 110 kg and have it hold up apparently. Although this does seem to conflict again with the revamped M18 (to 18HT) that held up during the ICCT challenge.

Maybe Marstrom can hire Phill Brander to redesign the M20 hull shape a bit ? Wouldn't that be a good combination ? Good designing and excellent material workmanship all in one package ? And right now Phill is still cheap as a designer. He is still building up his designing resume.

Maybe someone should just casually run it by Goran over a beer ?

Wouter