Dear David,

still sorry to hear you have moved away from the wing-sail.  Perhaps it is a type most suited to multi-hull craft.  Efficiency being more important to maximum drive. 

Good to see you are going with the sleeved yard. 

Regarding fabricating Carbon-fibre spars, I recall that Mike Burroughs (the guru of wierd bicycle builder / designers) made frames from carbon on foam cores as you suggest.  His method of 'bagging' was to wrap round & round with electrical tape.  cheap effective, if not the best finish.  Early windsurfer masts must have been similar as they have a spiral ridge.

cheers

Mark

 

I think that it was something like that but I will ask and confirm.  I seem to remember that it was important that any second pour was done before the first pour had gone off and that the time to do that was short.  It might therefore not be quite as simple as you suggest because you would need to remove the temporary wedges before the Sparlight had cured.  Ah, I remember something now!  The poured in Spartight needs to have a dam floor to rest on whilst it cures and this was formed by stuffing in strips of a hard foam from underneath.  I think that the top of this would then have been faired with release agent.  As well as forming the floor for the Spartight, these would have held the mast in the centre of the deck hole, or wherever in the hole that you wish the mast to end up.  In my case it was definitely in the centre because the masts are vertical and the plug ended up round.  This temporary floor was then removed from below.  However, detail of the professionals' method to follow, I hope.  jds

"Good question.  Well asked!"  I can't remember, but that is nothing unusual these days.  Mine was done by Allspars with the boat afloat and I don't recall it being a problem.  However, it was three years ago and there was a lot going on at the time and I don't now remember the detail.  I am in Plymouth in the next few days and I will ask and let you know.  jds

My experience of Spartight has been very good.  When I bought Lexia and set off down the Irish Sea to do a 500 mile qualifying passage for OSTAR 2009 she had hard wood chocks at the deck partners.  One of my first big scares was that they groaned and cracked and moved alarmingly.  I now understand that if I had known more at that time I might have been able to get them seated satisfactorily.  However, I consulted All Spars of Plymouth and they replaced the chocks with Spartight.  For the subsequent 3,000 plus miles this worked very satisfactorily.  However, the next big scare from nasty noises was from the step of the main mast during AZAB 2011.  So, on return, I had Allspars lift out the main mast to repair the mast step and it made sense to have the foremast lifted to undertake a number of other repairs and modifications.  Both masts came out without any struggle.  The Spartight came out with the masts like corks out of an old fashioned medicine bottle.  When they first put the Spartight in, All Spars  had used a release grease on both the parallel sided mast and the well tapered hole through the deck.  The Spartight plugs released from the deck holes but barely moved on the masts.  However, when the mast were out, the plugs of Sparlight were quite loose on the masts and could be moved up and down.  To put the masts back in, we tapped the plugs to move them up the mast a little, dropped in and stepped the masts and then tapped the Spartight plugs home.  The plug to deck and plug to mast joins were again sealed with a run of silicone sealant.  This has so far proved to be water tight.  There is no need for mast boots.  I think that Spartight is magic. 

Jeff suffered, Lesley suffered ... and then it was my turn. Getting out a mast that's been stuck in with Spartite, that is. I clamped on two large timbers, to get good turning leverage. Couldn't turn the  mast. So I went upriver to Mahurangi marina, and went under the mast lifting gantry. Lifting and turning together didn't do much. So I cut off the mast at cabin sole level. Still no movement. So we chiselled away at the gap between the (unbolted) alloy deck ring and the deck. Finally, the mast jumped 2 ft in the air,as  the bond broke.