Shui Jen has a new carbon mast! 

Getting this mast was an adventure. A hinged unstayed mast for a mast maker used to BR boats, was for sure something unusual. This, together with my poor CAD skills, brought to a lot of misunderstandings and adjustments. The 700 km between my home and the mast maker and my job schedules, made the whole process not easier and quite longer. It took 10 months to get the stick finished!

The new snow white mast is 9.3m long, 1m longer than the original one.

It consists of 5 parts: a mast top, an upper conical pole, a lower tube, a hinge between them and a sliding tube.

-The mast top is inspired by Paul S design and consists of two 5mm carbon parts. The lower one is made of a dish and one cylinder glued together. The upper one is a dish that on its top fits anchor light and antenna. Between the upper and lower dishes a ring nut of teflon seals the mast up. The two dishes are tightened together with steel eyebolts which support the blocks for the halyards, easy jacks etc.. The mast top is bolted trough the mast with a m8 bolt of stainless steel.

-The upper pole and the lower tube have a thickness from bottom to the top of approximately 8mm (!). The area of the upper and lower mast around the hinge is thicker, almost 1cm (!!). The original mast was 6mm at the bottom and 3mm at top.I think that to be sure that this standing mast does’t brake, the mast maker simply overbuild it heavily. A good example of this is the mast foot. This is not only thick but has an additional cap of stainless steel with an extra cylinder of steel welded through it in order to add stability and host the bolt that goes through the mast step (!!!).

-The solid aluminum hinge between the upper and the lower pole is the original one. To avoid galvanic corrosion it has been wrapped in teflon and bolted to the carbon tubes with 6 m6 screws on each side. 

-The sliding tube is 3mm thick but reinforced in the area of the hinge. The tube is long and the bulging of the thicker area is barely to see. When lowered, it fits the mast snugly. 

The mast is not so light as I hoped. I think this because of its increased length, thickness and the weight of the mast top. Anyway, it seems to me that the effort in rising it is not bigger than that required for rising the old aluminium one. 

When up, the mast looks to me huge! And the sail sooo little….

While having the boot without mast I made some upgrades on the sail too: fendering and insulating battens, boom and yard with shrinkage tubes, mounting d-rings on the yard to attach the halyard and a couple more of little improvements.

Because of the many delays I could pick up the mast just in late July. I had just time to mount it and re-rig the sail it was the last day of our holiday. On that day there was 40° and no wind in the marina. The whole rig procedure started at 8:00 and finished at 16:00. Around midday, after putting the lower tube in place, I discovered the last of a long list of unexpected issues about this mast: the hole of the mast foot didn’t match the hole of the mast step. You can immagine how hot it was down below while filing the steel hole on the mast foot in order to get the bolt through. Everything went good and I was very happy as I hoisted the sail but I was then definitively too exhausted to have a test sail. Actually, I was lucky to have finished the task without having had an heatstroke.

I returned to the boat three weeks later with my family and we spend a week on board.

For the first 5 days we had only winds up to a F2.

To avoid long motoring with our 5 hp two stroke outboard we stayed in the golf of Triest, pottering around between the cliffs of Sistiana and the sand banks of the mouth of the Isonzo. Our radius was short but it has been a very relaxing time, filled with a lot of bathing, cooking and slow sailing.

While mounting the top gear, I opted for a short antenna instead the long one with an incorporated windex. In other words we have no windex and sailed Shui Jen by tell tales and observing the world around us (the direction of the sea ripples, the direction of the anchored boats and so on). We tryied to catch every puff of wind, reduce the use of the rudder to minimus, trim as best as we could the weight distribution and the sail.

This was an interesting exercise and Shui Jen moved along also when the sea looked almost completely smooth. Unfortunately our sailing was often disturbed by the wakes of motorboats speeding in every direction. They rudely ignored our efforts to keep our boat moving and created a confused sea rocking the boat in every direction. 

The last two days blew F3 gusting F5 from NE. Perfect conditions to test the mast. 

Unfortunately the first attempt to sail in a windy day was quitted because of mutiny.

At the first gusts of Bora accompanied by the related annoying chop, 3/4 of the crew voted for a quick return to the mooring and a compensation ice cream while sitting comfortably by the pool. 

The next day on the second attempt, Captain Iglo (so called me my two insolent young cabin’s boys because of my grizzled bard) was alone on board. The wind was gusty and the chop was annoying as the day before. I sailed Shui Jen hard around the mussel farm in front of the river exit where the marina is. We started with an upwind leg tacking repeatedly with 6 panels up between the mussel farm and the rocky coast.  Than came a short but fast leg with beam wind. On the downwind leg the wind dropped to F3 gusting F4 so I hoisted the last panel. We surfed the little waves and made a couple of controlled gybes.  The last leg with a F3 wind again on the beam was funny and fast as the former one. The rounding took a couple of hours than the wind died completely.

The first general impression is that the mast is stiffer and stouter than the former one. It bends less when the boat is pressed and swings less when hitting the waves. A taller and stiffer mast seems to be the right basis for a bigger sail with more mast balance, which would fit both the prevailing light winds of the golf of Triest and Shui Jen that looks to me undercanvassed and affected by too much weatherhelm. Such sail will be my project for the coming winter.

A big improvement of the new taller mast is to set the sail much higher. This frees the cockpit from the sheetlets when gybing and tacking, clears the view above the deckhouse and  bring the fore batten ends out from head height making the bow triangle a much more comfortable place to sit.

By the way, while mounting and disassembling the old and new masts I noticed a crack on the fiberglass of the mast step. I discussed the issue with Pete Hill which suggested to cover the whole step with several layers of glass math and epoxy. Later, looking at the mast step more carefully, I discovered two more cracks. For me this sounds like an alarming signal of a potential structural failure needing attention before increasing the sail area and thus the stress on the mast. 

I discussed the issue with a experienced neighbor and he put me in contact with a local boatbuilder that rebuild the transom of his boat after a major storm damage. He means that the steel mast step could have moved under the coat of fiberglass, causing the cracks. The best way to address the issue would be to grind the metal step free and inspect it. If it’s loose, it should be cleaned up, glued  back in position and covered with a thicker and wider layer of fiberglass and epoxy. So, on our last day I disassembled the mast again and left the boat ready for the boat builder.

I'm sure many people will wonder if it is worth to spend all this money on a boat like mine.

Well,  I’m aware that I’m spending more money than the boat’s value and that with all this money I could probably afford a much bigger and better boat.

On the other hand, in this stage of my life a bigger boat would make little sense to me. With a full time job, a young family and being the caregiver of my parents, I don’t have much time left for sailing and a fully equipped bigger vessel would probably represent just an additional hurdle between me and the sea. For the next years all I need is a structural sound little boat, manageable, quick to leave the mooring and easy to sail but sturdy enough to collect sailing experience along the coast in a wide range of weather conditions. 

Shui Jen looks perfect for this, and I think that this money was well invested…

Mauro