From funcat-sailing.de website:

Tornado Carbon Mast Tests by Ullman Sails Loft Zuccoli-Italy
Thanks to Mitch, Jojo, Florian, Romain, Francois B., Mathieu, Gaël, Francois M., Nico and Tino!
We had four great sailing days in Torbole, with excellent freezy weather conditions!
Two boats with carbon masts and two with aluminium ones were rigged.
While studying the reactions of the major factors that will give the basics for the new main, we can proudly say that the necessary information on how to modify the existing sails, to perfectly fit the carbon mast, were finally achieved. For/aft and side bending, spreader length/angle, rod diamonds, diamonds attachment, rake and loads on the sail, were our basics to improve the necessary feed back for a sail which should suppply enough power and leech control in very light conditions and which should allow to gradually depower it while the wind increases, up to a total control of it in extreme conditions.
Mast controls (Diamond tension, Spreader rake, Spreader length, mast rake,shroud tension) were carefully tested through a very large range of variables. We can confirm that with the carbon mast there are less difficulties to find the basic set up for the proper matching with the sail.
As the complete and definitive mast rules are not yet known, we prefer to wait for them before suggesting any tuning data.
We clearly confirmed what was already known: on carbon mast the sail has to support much higher loads. Because so we have to face the quite small sailcloth choice through the currently approved sailcloth list.


- Ulmann Sails Italy- Info:
Lately we have seen on Tornado and Formula18 new Class Rules, where relevant matters were: approved Sailcloth list and carbon mast (new luff round).
On sailcloth list, weight and stiffness are the keys. This were the main aspects we had in mind when designing the lightest possible sail, studied to grant the needed mechanical stiffness through 15days of sailing (Olympics). This brought us to what is known as Cuben, a cloth specifically produced with non-aramidics fiber and which was not in the market the first times we used it.
Any other existing sailcloth, even if suiting the required caracteristics (weight and stiffness), was not showing to be as strong as the Cuben. We can say that Cuben was a good toy, but unfortunately out of F18/Tornado Class rules!
Neverless our A-Cat Cuben sails have proved their value after a full season, still showing better “health” than their Aramidic “step brothers”.
On Tornado and F18 mainsails we can hardly recommend three different cloth:
Dacron : 205SQ for Tornado ; 180SQ or 205SQ for F18 ;
Mylar Pentex : PE15-1,5mil for Tornado and Apen06-3mil for F18 ;
MAXX09 Pentex for both Tornado and F18
These, all together with the carbon mast developed curves (see picture), allow us to proudly introduce in the market our Tornado mainsail models: LPODC, LPOPX and LPOMAXX.

On what is jibs, the choice is still between Dacron (205SQ for Tornado and 180SQ/205SQ for F18) and Pentex (Pe15-1.5mil Tornado ; Apen06-3mil F18), where the Dacron will grant a longer durability while the Pentex easily allow a lighter sail.

We noticed that F18 is moving towards Pentex. It is still no question that Dacron remains the best solution when furling the ji (and furling is a “must” until 2007).

Spinnakers. Again thanks to the Olympic researchm, we started our second session of Wind Tunnel Tests(see picture). The data we obtain, together with the hours of testing in the water, bring us once more to the LP12 shape which proves his excellent performing on Tornado and on all different F18 boat .

Call me a lousy engineer but how does anyone explain this conclusion exactly ?

Are turnbuckles easier to turn on a carbon mast ? Or are spreaders more easily adjusted on a carbon mast ? May the stainless steel shrouds notice the material chance of the nearby mast and behave differently ?

Or could it be that carbon masts have smaller ranges in which they can be realistically adjusted ?

That latter point is not exactly what we're looking for to increase equality in a large range in crewweights is it ?

But it certainly would explain the next statement :




Translated : higher sheet and downhaul loads are required to get a carbon mast sail into the right shape for different conditions then it was designed for. Those Tornado guys better be prepared to go to 1:10 sheet systems. Now everything will be loaded up more. Hulls, main beam, rearbeam, forestay. This will do wonders for the perceived stiffness of the platform.

Funny, may turn out that aluminium had its advantages as well. Looks like a large range of adjustment combined with lower loads is one of these. It just occured to me that alu indeed has a high flex to load ratio without closing in on any risk zones. I don't know the right word for it in English. But is like "wiry" or "leathery". You can stretch and pull it and it will flex enough to give way but will hold its consistancy; its basic structure. Wood has similar characteristics. Both can take inpact loads rather well before losing integraty. They do it by adsorbing enough of the shock by flexing. And they are both quite resiliant to developping cracks and ruptures. And when they do fail they do by a path of degradation instead of failing with a bang.

Makes me remind of the mono-film mainsail stage that has passed now. When cut exactly right they were fast but when even the smalles mistake crept in or when the conditions/crew differed too much then the dacron sails of old were passing you. And when they were hit the wrong way with any pointy object they would explode in one big rupture.

But I must say, this article said alot more than it probably wanted to and it was valuable.

(note that it appears to support what I know from other, independent, sources)

Wouter

Some additional information, from "Christmas Race" at Palamos.

1: The carbon mast with proper sails was faster than boats with alu masts. One of the crews with alu mast was faster consistently than one of the other crews last year. This year the roles was reversed, probably due to a carbon mast.
(Both teams are excellent teams, of comparable skill levels)

2: The new mast is very stiff, and does not bend much as downhaul is applied. Also has a lot more spreader rake as compared to alu masts, to get some pre-bend into it.


Did I hear 'the peoples movement to allow alu masts to be re-fitted with streamlined spreaders and no tip-weight correctors' firing up in the background

You're looking for "pliable".

Rolf,

I would like to know everything about the Christmas race at Palamos 2004 and 2003. Wind conditions and all. One of the first things I want to know is was 2004 light winds ?

Do you have race data for both event. Elasped time results and crew make-ups. How many crews changed make-up etc.

Do you know the overall weight of the older Alu masts ?

Can you give me the tip weight on older Alu masts ?

Has the carbon mast tipweight been specified ? If not then I can most likely reverse engineer it using the alu specs.




I don't sail tornado but I would I certainly support such an initiative if I were. They are actively killing the alu masts by forcing them to use suboptimal parts and tipweights. And what not else I wonder.

Do I here that carbon masts are allowed rod rigging ? Surely the alu masts are not allowed that.

We may all be surprised what happens if the alu masts are allowed all the same upgrades.

One more question. Is the alu tornado mast a wingshape section or a water drop shape ? You can recognise this most easily by the fact that water drop shaped mast are almost circular in front and have the max width relatively far forward. True wingshape masts have an elliptical front and have the max width at about 40 % from the leading egde.

I'm quite sure the new carbon mast is a wingmast section, they would be stupid to have chosen a old style crossection like a water droplet.

Lets get on top of this.

Wouter

I'm not clear if theye are recommending these or not???

thom

I appears to be like the article is written in English by a non-native speaker. He probably meant to say "heartly or "whole heartedly"

Wouter

From Landenberger Sails website
It seems that Andrew shares the same opinion of Pablo at Ullman - Iseo. Sorry Wouter!

A lot of people are asking us the same questions at the moment, so we are writing something to try to give the answer. We started developing the sail for the marstrom Carbon mast back in march 2004. Since then we have made a lot of sails and done a lot of testing. We have had the actual mast here at the loft since September after testing in Sweden during August. The final testing was in Genoa last week where we found our latest design to have a really significant speed advantage over the earlier models. The sectret has been to get the right balance of luff curve for the built in shape. In this sail we had made the profile as fair as possible making the sail very easy to trim and sail with. The design also accepts very easily adjustments with the spreaders and battens. We think this is very important for the future. On this basis we have decided to make this sail the standard production for 2005. It is very clear to us we can make very big changes to this sail with the spreaders, mast rotation, and battens. This is much more significant than in the aluminium mast. We have tested right through the wind range and it was always very easy to get the shape and power we wanted, so for us that makes a good sail to sell for this mast. It is very easy to use, and that is actually the most important point for good racing.We have tested so much already, it is time to stop and just go racing. For 2005, we have done the work. Now we need to go racing and learn about sailing with this mast and how to set the boat up. It is really clear that the settings need to be very different. We have written a rather extensive tuning guide based on all we have discovered. This we be sent out with the new sails. So to answer all questions, the sail will remain standard for 2005. It is not easy just to come up with something faster as we have already tried and tested almost every thing we can. We are sure we go forward in the future like usual, but the big step for us is clearly made. Now we need a good season to see what we can refine, but after 12 test sails we can't see a 2005 sail being outdated so easily by a 2006 model.

For an idea about prices, clothes and shapes go to:

http://www.landenberger-sailing.com...splay&btitle=CE&mid=&ceid=17

and also

http://www.funcat-sailing.de/index0.htm

Wouter: All actual information I have about the event is found on http://www.christmasrace.org
The information I relayed, came from another T-sailor. I can ask him about the spesific conditions, and wether there was any crew/setup changes. Much information can be gleaned from the race reports tough. Jo-jo Polgar was the one with the carbon stick, and the austrian team was consistently faster last season.

The alu masts shall weight in at no less than 23 kg's with all fittings and running rigging attached. Tip weight is 10.25 kg's or 10.5 kg's depending on wether there is an internal jib halyard.

There was some information about carbon mast data on the tornado.org web site, but it has vanished, as has the class rules (somebody probably has done some error in uploading or changing the site). I dont know the tip weight, but I can ask around..

You can see the profile for the new mast on : http://www.tornado.org/uploads/documents/15.pdf

There was quite a bit of information on the carbon stick in the proposed new class rules that was pending ISAF approval. When they become on-line again, I think you can find the tip weight there.

Rolf, how do you know which crew has carbon ?

In addition to that the results are pretty unconvincing. The fleet size is also pretty small and crews like Brouwer/Godefroid as first timers.

total/overall vela
vela/sail tripulació
tripulación/crew punts
puntos/points 1 2 3 4 5
1 GER 1087 Johannes Polgar/Florian Spalteholz 2 2 2 1 1
2 ESP 1 Fernando Echavarri/Antón Paz 1 1 1 2 2
3 AUT 381 Thomas Zajac/Thomas Czajka 4 3 4 4 3
4 ESP 23 Toni Rivas/Fabian Escude 3 DNF 6 3 4
5 BEL 7 Carolijn Brouwer/Sebastien Godefroid 5 4 3 DNF DNF
6 POL 26 Adam Skomski/Jakub Kopylowicz 6 5 5 5 5


Appears to me that the difference between 1st ans 2nd was the smallest possible and I don't really consider the other crew to be well-known with funded assumptions of excellence. So if #1 had carbon and #2 didn't then from these results I can't conclude much at all. (no elapsed times). If the first 2 had carbon and the other didn't then I'm sure wether we cut loose sailor skill from mast material.


Wouter

Wouter: The two crews to watch during christmas race is JoJo and Thomas Zajac. I'll forward a copy of a private message to you regarding that regatta..

Agreed, the base is to small to draw statistical conclusions.

More data will be available soon, as the european season is about to start. Perhaps Mr. Granfield will post some more data from the Miami OCR, where he is sailing with a carbon mast..

Here the date from the USA nationals




The shifty offshore NW breeze again challenged the sailors on Biscayne Bayless, although it strengthened to 8-12 knots.

Rob Parrish and Lars Guck (USA) made a lot of good tactical decisions today and kept on the pace as well. This gave them finishes of 1-4-1, and gave the young helmsman a lot to smile about.

Gaebler/Struckmann (GER) and Johansonn/Stittle (CAN) continued their very tight competition, with Gaebler/Struckmann taking finishes of 2-3-4 while Johansonn/Stittle took finishes of 3-2-2. At the end of the day they were tied at 13pts.

Daniel/Rodriguez missed a shift on the first upwind leg and ran in 5th place behind Grandfield/Kuschner for the next two laps. At the finish Daniel/Rodriguez pulled up to 4th place, 1 second ahead of Grandfield/Kuschner. Robbie and Enrique returned to form in the next two heats, and finished the day with 4-1-3.

THE RESULTS AFTER 5 RACES
1 USA 804 Daniel/Rodriguez 1 1 4 1 3 - 10pts (ALU)
2 GER 1090 Gaebler/Struckmann 2 2 2 3 4 - 13pts (ALU)
3 CAN 369 Johansson/Stittle 3 3 3 2 2 - 13pts (ALU)
4 USA 802 Parrish/Guck 4 4 1 4 1 - 14pts (CARBON)
5 USA 813 Grandfield/Kuschner 6 5 5 6 5 - 27pts (CARBON)
6 CAN 2 Dubuc/L'Abbe 5 6 6 5 7 - 29pts (ALU)
7 USA 824 Malcheski/Malcheski 7 8 7 7 6 - 35pts (ALU)
8 USA 839 Thinschmidt/Wierda 8 7 DNC DNC DNC - 42pts (ALU)


MASTS and SAILS
Daniel/Rodriguez Aluminum/Ullman-Gransegel
Gaebler/Struckmann Aluminum/Ullman-Gransegel
Johansson/Stittle Aluminum/Performance
Parrish/Guck Carbon/Landenberger-Olympic-Gransegel
Grandfield/Kuschner Carbon/Landenberger-Olympic-Landenberger
Dubuc/L'Abbe Aluminum/Ullman
Malcheski/Malcheski Aluminum/Ullman
Thinschmidt/Wierda Aluminum/Landenberger-Gransegel


Wouter

Thanks Rolf,

I did some background checks

Tornado Worlds 2004 results

http://www.cnarenal.com/fdb/fca392e6f15bca41.html



Team Thomas Zajac did 42nd overall with AUT 381 Thomas Zajac/Thomas Czajka 317pnt 16 DNC 38 DNC 36 45 38 39 42

Team Jojo did 14th overall with GER 1087 Johannes Polgar/Carsten Happel 132pnt 23 12 18 7 17 21 18 16 DNC

Team Thomas never did better than 16th and Team Jojo never did worse than 23rd. All other placings of Jojo are halve of what Thomas did.

Rolf, this is a bad match ; the teams appear to be too different in sailing skills; I dare not conclude anything from this Chrismas racing. If anything their won last year and their loss this year is a fluke.

Wouter

It's easier to achieve and maintain a specific flying shape on a stiffer mast. (It sounds like this mast is stiffer). I think this is what they mean by "there are less difficulties to find the basic set up for the proper matching with the sail." Not that the turnbuckles are easier to turn.
The word in English you are looking for is ductile.

That's not to say stiffer is faster. But lighter for a given stiffness is always faster.
Of course after only four days of testing they realistically have only a rudimentary understanding of how the new mast will effect sail design.

A tear drop shape crossection it is then !

I think the drawing at http://www.tornado.org/uploads/documents/15.pdf makes it quite clear. The new carbon mast is again a tear drop (or water drop) shaped crossection. No wingmast for these guys, but great in comparing alu to Carbo.

There are a few additional details that are interesting. The spi hound is at 8180 mm leading to a hoist height above the beam of about 8250 mm or less. F18 has hound at 8150 and a max mast foot height of 120 mm. Typically the F18's have a hosit height of about 8220 mm. So the new tornado's have a gate height that is as good as the same as the F18's ! AT about 8235 - 500 = 7735 mm. This give F18 spis an aspect ratio (on this particular gate height) of 2.85 and the Tornado spi of 2.49 or 2.39 depending wether 24 or 25 sq. mtr. spi is used. This actually means that teh Tornado spi will be nothing more than the F18 spi with 4 sq.mtr of area glued to the leech. I'm not sure if that helps alot. It certainly explains why F20's do so well again Tornado's in the lighter winds. F20 have higher spi hounds and therefor longer spi luffs.


On the tpweights :

Carbon mast => 15.5 kg overall including (carbo) fittings; this leads to tipweights somewhere around 7.0 kg when looking at a tapered mast.

10.25 or 10.5 kg tipweight for the alu mast with normal fittings do square with an overall weight of 22-24 kg. Weight alu section per mtr = 2.15 kg. seems right in comparison with 2.0 kg per mtr for F18 mast that are slightly shorter.

Thanks for the data Rolf !

Appreciate it.

Wouter

Thank you Rhody,

Of course I was being sarcastic with my turnbuckle comment.

What is interesting is that we stumble on a striking contradiction here.

Engineers and likewise minded persons always love clearly defined and predictable systems. However real life users may have a different appreciation.

Note the following :

"It's easier to achieve and maintain a specific flying shape on a stiffer mast"

But in changing conditions you DON'T want a specific flying shape that maintains itself. This ease of altering flying shape is exactly what allows us sailors to depower our rigs and trim it to an optimal shape for specific conditions.

Actually it is alot easier to design and tune a single gear race car but it is not what will win races on the track. I fear we are getting into this area with a very stiff carbon mast.

Wouter

I was thinking "Modulus of Elasticity"

My impression of this (translated to English) wording is that he is being a bit sarcastic...they seem to heavily favor Cuben, but cannot use it due to class rules (F18 & T...cost), so, they are left with the inferior choices of Pentex & Dacron.

Of course, if the translation was a little bit off, the real intent could have been completely lost.

There is no contradiction.
You always want a specific flying shape. The questions are what is the shape and how do you achieve it. The stiffness of the mast comes into the how do you achieve it part of the equation.

Let me simplify things ...

Question :

Is the optimal flying shape of the mainsail at 8 knots the same as the optimal flying shape at 22 knots ?

If you answer yes then you haven't won many races lately.

Wouter