Mast in slalom PWA

I heard lot of times that pwa slalom sailors dont use production mast on races.
Do you know what is reason for that,isn't it weird, because sail is desing around original mast curve/stiff?
So with mast and fin you can make a difference..

mast are production, it's just that they get a whole bunch of them and test them endlessly (mixing tops and bottoms) until they get the one they're looking for. they mark them according to which sail and even which wind contions.

Saw A2 do his testing with a gps a couple of years ago, impressive, lots of patience and you have to love rigging and de-rigging.......

and some riders choose to go with a different brand from their sail, "slake" for example.

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seanhogan said..
mast are production, it's just that they get a whole bunch of them and test them endlessly (mixing tops and bottoms) until they get the one they're looking for. they mark them according to which sail and even which wind contions.

Saw A2 do his testing with a gps a couple of years ago, impressive, lots of patience and you have to love rigging and de-rigging.......

and some riders choose to go with a different brand from their sail, "slake" for example.

Hi do you know how to get a Slake mast?

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Wing 11 said..

seanhogan said..
mast are production, it's just that they get a whole bunch of them and test them endlessly (mixing tops and bottoms) until they get the one they're looking for. they mark them according to which sail and even which wind contions.

Saw A2 do his testing with a gps a couple of years ago, impressive, lots of patience and you have to love rigging and de-rigging.......

and some riders choose to go with a different brand from their sail, "slake" for example.

Mix between diffrent mast models or ?
They use for example ,bottom of tpx100 with top of spx65,you mean on that?
Can you explain...

NO, mostly likely he is finding the one TPX100 that is the most perfect for the sail. Even in one batch the bend curves can vary a few points. It is incredibly difficult to get it consistent. Even turning the mast in a different orientation(rotation) can change the curve. The difference are only mm which most of us would never feel - but a guy like AA will want any possible advantage.

^^^ no I'd say quite the opposite. The couple of factories they almost all come from are very very good

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Mark _australia said..
^^^ no I'd say quite the opposite. The couple of factories they almost all come from are very very good

Yes this is true. There are probably 3 main factories that build 90% of the masts. Then a few smaller companies like Slake, No-Limitz, & Caas that build the rest. There is really not much Technology to hide. If it is a 100% Carbon mast, then it comes down to what process which is either roll wrapped & baked pre-preg, roll wrapped & autoclaved pre-preg, a few may be filament wound wet lay-up, or some form of "Tow-preg". Then it comes down to fibers which are either standard modulus, intermediate modulus, or high modulus. Most will be roll wrapped standard modulus, as it gives the best strength to stiffness to value ratio.

I have reported this before, but when I was at Luderitz in 2013, I was fasinated to watch while AA rigged, and re-riged his sail multiple time and tried 3 different masts. I was watching closely and I am slightly embarrased to say that I could not see what he was looking for, or, I mean I could not see the small differences he was seeing. As far as I could tell, all the masts were production masts and they all looked the same. He seemed to be satisfied he had found what he was looking for though.

Yes, even from the best factories, some of which individually test every mast to ensure it falls within their QC limits, there are slight differences between individual masts. Likewise, there are very slight differences between individual sails. These differences are usually very small and beyond the detection threshold of most of us. When you are as tuned into your rigs as the top professionals though, the differences can somethimes be detected and mast/sail combinations optimised for certain conditions.

At a more basic level, I am sure some of us have found a particular 'magic' combination of mast and sail that just seemed to work really well for us. I can think of a couple in my experience, (often PB rigs) and I have always kept those sails and masts as reference. But the interesting thing is that when I recently returned to have a test sail on one of my 'Magic' PB rigs from a few tears ago, I was surprised to find that it didn't feel any better at all from my current model equivalent, and the current model has noticably some better aspects. It's nice to confirm that we have made such progress.

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Maui74 said..

seanhogan said..
mast are production, it's just that they get a whole bunch of them and test them endlessly (mixing tops and bottoms) until they get the one they're looking for. they mark them according to which sail and even which wind contions.

Saw A2 do his testing with a gps a couple of years ago, impressive, lots of patience and you have to love rigging and de-rigging.......

and some riders choose to go with a different brand from their sail, "slake" for example.

Hi do you know how to get a Slake mast?

You can order them online
slake.co/how-to-order/

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col5555 said..

choco said..

jusavina said..
I bought a sail and a mast (used for the last event in Noum?a) from Albeau for a friend and their were definitively production.
He however kept his battens and put the production one back in the sail...

Battens are the main part of the sails that the pros always change the production ones are a compromise between performance and price

What feature would they be looking for in battens ?

they fiddle around with the length

I dont think the description of 'Backbone' is a very good term to use at all in relation to windsurfing masts, but yes, some Carbon masts can have a very slight prebend.

In my experience of new mast testing, it is rarely noticeable and usually not more and a mm or 2. Any more is probaly filtered out in QC at the factory if it is seen.

With 2 piece RDM masts, of which I have tested dozens, they can sometimes, but not always test ever so slightly different if you align the top and bottom differently. I am only talking in the order of max. a couple of 10th's in the IMCS or maybe 0.5% bend curve. Both would normally be well within the acceptable range between masts from the same batch. All masts will vary slightly in their IMCS and % curve numbers, depending on the acceptable range the factory sets in QC, but it is usually within +/- half a point IMCS and 0.5% curve from the top manufacturers. Some factories have some quite sophistcated testing rigs as a couple of mm of bend can have a significant effect on the final numbers. This is why, when home testing, one need to be very careful and precise with weight, the position of weighting and measuring points and the actual measurement of deflection. It's a lot harder to do consistently and accuratly than it may look.

I have seen a few well used masts over the years which have taken on the permanent pre-bend. Possibly from being overheated on the beach under load. I guess this would impact the set of the sails depending on which way it was rigged, bit I have never really tested it.

It comes down a lot to the personal "feeling" you have on your gear. Most of the PWA guys are using different board brands on the same sails, and that can mean a very different feeling to how the person responsible for developing the sail feels it.

A few years ago Bjorn and Cyril were doing the development for the Severne sails. These are tall, +100kg guys and I'm 82kg. I found the sails had a lot of backhand pressure and I use different fins to those guys so I would find my board would start flying away when it was windy and it was hard to settle my gear down. I generally order new masts each season so I have a bit of a collection of the same size masts, and yes, there's reasonable (and noticeable) differences between the same size masts. I tried every mast combo I had until I found one that gave me a bit more shape at the front of the sail and that locked my board down on the water. For me that was a better solution than putting the track forward on my board which was slower. It takes a bit of effort to rig and test the same sail over and over in many wind conditions, but usually what we are all looking for is a way to make the gear feel as COMFORTABLE as we can for our own sailing style (and boards, and fins, which are all different).

When I just on other PWA rider's gear it usually feels horrible. haha. Everyone is setting up different.

I don't think too many guys would be using "custom" masts. But definitely we all collect many masts over the years and keep the ones that we think have a particular feature which makes the sails rig nicer in our opinion. Or if we are trying to correct a new feature in the sail that we don't like... (for example the current Severne's have very neutral backhand pressure now, which is great, but maybe Bjorn hates that I don't know?). Every year the gear gets closer and closer to perfection. 10 years ago I used to put custom battens (and even custom cams!) in my sails to improve the feeling, now I don't touch battens - the production Severne sails are REALLY sweet straight out of the bag.

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FishMints said..
Do masts have a "backbone"?

As gorgesailor mentioned - this could be something they're searching for with all the re-rigging/top and bottom swaps.

When making fishing rods from 1 piece rod blanks, to find the '"backbone" of the blank, you bend the rod against a flat floor surface, holding the butt (fat end) and roll it - and you can actually feel a distinct point in the flex while rotating where the rod blank flicks around to its natural bend position. The tighter the curvature - the more obvious the effect. (Imagine the feel of magnets when facing +/+ or -/- ...they want to spin/move to opposite poles - its similar and as distinct a feeling as this.)

Surely this would also exist in masts too - impossible to find using the fishing rod technique of course - but do manufactures find it? ...or indicate it?
i.e.: mast graphics on the outer/backbone edge? (so you always rig with mast measurements facing front tip of board)

Perhaps with modern 2 pieces masts, carbon content, and different production techniques its no longer an obvious a trait (as it once might have been in old, one piece, spun fibreglass masts).

If it is still there - its probably disrupted to some point by the ferrule, and also by sailors not rotating/aligning the top and bottom ends of their mast - so any "backbone" that is there ...aligns.

Rods in the past used alot of wraps, thus there is overlap points of material. Masts & good carbon rods are supposed to be pre preg fibre controlled by machine with the race masts only having a wrap in the boom area (or in rods decorative wraps near the reel seat or some fibre oriented wraps to give lifting power in the butt) so there should be no reason for them to have a back bone. Cheaper masts, rods & some of the better rdms do use wraps. It's not really something i've noticed with carbon masts but back in fibreglass mast days some certainly had a backbone. I have noticed with some masts if they are not far from breaking you may start to notice that backbone effect or pre bend for no apparent reason when rigging.

You will bend a mast if you leave it rigged constantly, years ago we would leave our sails rigged & just let off the downhaul but even that bent the masts over time. Fishing rods will do that just from unsupported weight & heat so best not to have them in top of shed or near a roof. Mine live in comfort & even then i'll rotate them occasionally as they are built so soft now & i don't like seeing any bend in a $500 rod other than what it's meant for.

But as Sean said there are variances in the same masts, i don't understand why, understandable if they are hand laid, is it due to them keeping/using pre-preg outside of it's shelf life? I had heard in the past some of the pwa guys would weigh the masts & select the ones out of batch they wanted.

So how long does a mast last before it loses the characteristics that you bought it for?
Do pwa sailors replace them every year (or a longer or shorter period)?

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John340 said..

regal1 said..
So how long does a mast last before it loses the characteristics that you bought it for?
Do pwa sailors replace them every year (or a longer or shorter period)?

I had a 460 SDM 100% carbon mast that I purchased second hand from a team mate. He told me he bought it second hand from someone else. It must be nearly 10 years old. I onsold it to another team mate and it is still going strong. I only sold it because I changed my sail brand.

I am not an expert in composites, but if there is no structural damage or separation of fibres, then there should be no reduction in performance.

I recon that is about right. I tested some 7 or 8 year RDM 100% Carbon masts again recently, and came up with the same numbers.

Of course, I have snapped more than a few Carbon SDM masts over the years.... I have never snapped an RDM.

Latest windsurf magazine.....

MAST MATTERS
We lift the lid on the mysterious world of slalom masts as the pros reveal their secrets to finding, testing and preserving their very best ones!


www.windsurf.co.uk/nov-dec-2018-issue-magazine-buy-subscribe-digital-online-print-app/?ct=t(Windsurf_Mag_NOV/DEC_2018_On_Sale_Now_9_10_18)&mc_cid=27fda6b30e&mc_eid=52c865fc0e

What are stronger or harder to break RDM or SDM. The reason l ask this question is because l have a old 75% 460 Gasstra ignition mast.it has never failed me.l don't use it now but it served it purpose.