I wonder if it's because they think that they may be liable to being sued if the mast failed and someone was injured or died. When used as a lamp post they can no doubt produce screeds of calculations and test reports to prove that the post is fit for purpose so keep their insurance company happy. However when used as a yacht mast stresses would be unknown to them and the first question likely to be asked in the event of an accident would be ' why did you sell the lamp post that you knew would be used as a mast without being able to prove that it would be suitable'.

I seem to remember something about the Gougeon Bros. stopping selling plans for wing masts because of liability reasons.     

Just FYI,

ALC have recently made the decision to no longer supply one offs for nautical applications, this is the response they send out. They refer to a distributor of theirs, Marwood Electrical, but it say they will only supply stock columns.

Wonder what happened to make them take such a decision?

I can understand that handling such enquiries might appear a waste of resources for the effort, ie if they were only selling one at a time. Shame they just won't not have considered an additional 'special order' handling charge instead.

----

From: ALC www.alulight.co.uk

Thank you very much for your enquiry, on this occasion we would like to decline the opportunity due to the work involved.

We have previously supplied these, although the decision has been made as a company it is not commercially viable moving forward.

It would be worth you contacting our distributor Marwood Electrical based in Kent, although they will only be able to supply stock columns.

http://www.marwoodelectrical.co.uk/

"Lliutro".

The name comes from a novel by Richard Llewellyn; I think from the second in the trilogy in four parts that starts with "How Green was my Valley".

There may well be some photos in the earlier JRA newsletters.

sailboatdata.com gives the sail area as 265 ft² / 24.62 m², and that kind of rings a bell, but I regret that my memory's not elephantine enough to recall the mast length. At a guess, though, it would have been about 10 or 10.5 metres, as Annie's Fantail needed a mast length of 9.5 metres for a lower aspect ratio sail.

The mast went in just forward of the head, aft of the forward berths, on the line of the forward bulkhead. 

For "Sadler 25" read "24 plus rudder". The 26 was a much bigger boat.

David Tyler wrote:

Martin,

The first mast I had on my bilge keel Sadler 25 (years and years ago) was 127 x 3.2 wall - that was underkill, and I bent it, but only because I flew a light weather sail without a running backstay. I would be quite happy with the 177 mast, if it's long enough.

Martin: David's Sadler was a lovely, pretty boat and I seem to remember it sailed very well.  I don't think you'd regret following in his footsteps.  And aren't they unsinkable?  Even more of an advantage than a better righting moment :-)