Building a Composite Wingmast

I think that’s probably true. I’ve also been experimenting with fullt wrap-round sails - welded together up the leech. In practice they are pretty much single thickness aft of, say, 12% of chord.

definetly the mast need to be tapered, you want a increasing amount of bend as you go up, with the top bending off the most, not someting that bends uniformly… [at least i think thats right!] the bigger question is how to eliminate hard spots… [one of the laser’s few down falls]
:graduate:

speaking of chord angus, just generally, [if i may ask] what are you guys using as sail chord on footys? 12%, 8%, 15%?

On the glider tail-booms I’ve been playing with, sandpaper! But they’re still far too stiff for the stability of a footy. Preseve gane fish: build a hi-tech Footy!

I think the sleeved mast contributes to the hard spots, since multiple thickness at each of these prevents equal mast bend. If one uses a tapered fishing rod blank, I would suggest the taper would provide a more uniform bend. You also see hard spots on sailboard rigs if mast is multiple part, whereas a once piece mast - even fiberglass - will have uniform bending characteristics.

Yes, it would be simply a matter of placing a #6 round headed brass wood screw into the deck to act as a pivot ball. Actually, Mark & Whitney Gee of the 10 Rater Class have been doing some work with wingmasts, but I’m not sure of the results.

Quite frankly, I have a feeling that this sort of rig may offer the most benefit to platforms capable of greater speeds such as multihulls or landyachts/iceboats. At lower speeds, the drag reduction may become less significant aerodynamically. But it certainly would be interesting to test the hypothesis empirically on the race course.

The better alternative may well prove to be a nicely designed sleeved luff which assumes an airfoil shape. This idea has previously been forth by Claudio on this forum & I believe Graham Bantock has done some trials in the 10R Class. Also, Brett’s unarig design for the Footy Class has this characteristic (see below)

As does Stollery’s Bug, Richardson’s Dingo …