Please note I have sold Alianco. Thanks for the advice. I will leave this thread up in case there is information useful to anyone else.

Anonymous wrote:

Considering France is one of the major growers of Douglas Fir I haven't had a single reply from a French supplier or sawmill concerning getting the masts made or even supplying two suitable trees. I suspect I'm going to have to build a wood and tarpaulin lean-to against the boat and build hollow masts. I have at least found a supplier of Douglas Fir of the right dimensions for that, though I'll have to scarf the boards to make up the length. A job for the spring.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I build steel masts all the time in New Zealand (about twenty to date) they are robust, reasonably light, have a small cross section and give good service. 

If you give me the sail area and LAP I can calculate the wall thickness, diameter and taper for you.

Hi Paul, My original Douglas Fir masts are:

Mainmast 13300mm long, LAP 11300mm, diameter at the base 220mm, diameter at the top 110mm. Mainsail 328 square feet.

Foremast 11330mm long, LAP 9830mm, top and bottom diameters the same as the mainmast, Foresail 239 square feet.

I don't know what sort of diameter and taper you would recommend, but if the tops stayed at 110mm I could use the existing mast tops with the fittings for the pulleys, windex, light and radar reflector. I can easily accommodate a narrower width at the partners than the timber masts.

Thanks for your help.

Dermot

I've realised I've made a stupid error in calculating the area of the sails. I based it on the photo I used as my avatar, not allowing for foreshortening. Now I have an exact length for the LAP of both masts I realise that the masts are 20% taller than the photo implies. The mast lengths and diameters are corrected but the sails areas are as follows:

Mainsail 390 square feet

Foresail 285 square feet

There would also be a slight change in the lengths of the booms, but whatever slight increase in area this may add should be easily covered within the safety margins of the mast design.

Anonymous wrote:

Meanwhile, has anyone thought to go to Siberian Larch? In 1999 

It's very splintery and I'm not sure that wood from Russia is going to be readily available these days!

Not to promote Siberian Larch but to answer your concerns, I contacted a distributor. They have Siberian Larch in stock but it is dwindling. They recommend predrilling a pilot hole if you are going to nail it. I assume they are referring to tendency to split. But can one work around that?

If I were really interested, I would track down someone who participated in the building of Tenacious. (1999) I see that the Jubilee Sailing Trust is on the verge of shutting down for lack of income Pity.

That said, If I were building new, I'd be tempted by the steel mast Paul Thompson is talking about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I build steel masts all the time in New Zealand (about twenty to date) they are robust, reasonably light, have a small cross section and give good service. 

If you give me the sail area and LAP I can calculate the wall thickness, diameter and taper for you.

That's very kind of you, but what is the LAP?