Very interesting piece. But, notice an important consideration. They cite that a lot of the lightning strike is dissipated by the stays, That is the important difference between the Morgan (and most other sailboats) and the Nonsuch. No stays on the Nonsuch. But, there was this caveat in the last line too. “And all without any appreciable increase in lightning strike risk, particularly since we have installed a substantial lightning conductor.”
I read that as a heavy wire run up inside the mast in order to protect it in a lightning strike. Which somewhat diminishes the main reason for going to carbon fiber which is the reduction in weight especially aloft. But, as long as the insurance companies are willing to insure boats with carbon fiber masts I say go carbon fiber if you want. But, that could change overnight if their losses from carbon fiber mast replacement start to rise. I would say that most boats do not have carbon fiber masts at this point. As for me I’m sticking with aluminum. I might consider a boom of Carbon Fiber but, not the mast. Mostly because it would hurt my head less if the topping lift breaks.<g>
As for selling my Nonsuch you’ll be waiting a very long time for that to happen. <g>
A couple of times now, in the discussion of carbon fiber masts, the notion of a C/F wishbone has been mentioned. I was always under the impression that one of the main advantages of a wishbone rig was the vang effect that came as a result of the weight of the wishbone. But the lighter-weight C/F wishbone would probably not be as effective in that regard.
Didn't some of the early "new" models (260, 324, 354) have a carbon fiber wishbone, and didn't Hinterhoeller revert to aluminum later? Maybe Allen Ames or Mike Quill can tell us.
The foot of the sail, not the weight of the boom, provides the vang effect
with a wishbone boom.
All the greater weight of the aluminum booms does is close the leech in very
light wind (makes boat very slow) and put anyone at greater risk who gets
hit by the boom.
Cheers,
Arthur Langley
BEAR AWAY 30C 54 BEAR AWAY 30C 14 BROADWAY 30U 426
Wells ME Wells Harbor South Baymouth ON Toronto ON Royal Canadian YC
NH & Maine Fleet Lake Huron Fleet West-Lake Ontario Fleet
As I discovered from the builder and designer of the Wyliecat wishbone, they have carbon fiber nose pieces and tail pieces with 3 inch aluminum tubing ( same as the tubing used on the wishbone of my Nonsuch 22.) I used mild steel tubing in my Wyliecat width of wishbone modification. (http://nonsuch22blueberry.blogspot.com/2009/01/wyliecat-width-of-wishbone-on-blueberry.html)
In all but the lightest breezes. the weight of the wishbone itself does not seem to affect sail shape all that much. Since I do a mixture of sailing in mid San Francisco Bay winds that would "blow dogs off chains" and light air Oakland estuary beer can races where the evening breeze drops with the light of day, I opted to have separate port and starboard topping lifts to support the wishbone, switching the support with each tack, in the light evening air, a cunningham and a vang.
The original owners, designer and builder all were aware of the racing benefit of an adjustable vang line running between the luff cringle and the leech cringle of the sail. I use that vang to good advantage while racing in fresher breeze. When cruising with friends, I ignore my vang, cunningham, topping lift, and apart from a set it and forget it adjustment, my choker line as well, reverting to my beloved "one string to pull" configuration. Yeah, all right, so I have a two winch, endless mainsheet setup...(grin)...
While there is lots of theory and speculation about carbon masts and lightening, I don't know that the in-the-field experience with them justifies the concerns. Lightening is a chaotic and poorly understood event, the ability to predict damage in any particular situation is almost non-existent. I believe Composite Engineering has had at least two carbon masts take direct lightening strikes, in neither case was the mast destroyed or even much damaged. Perhaps a company like BoatUS has some statistics on dollar damage for strikes to a carbon rig vs. aluminum, if they do I would like to read it. There is even an argument that dissipating the energy of the strike in the rig (which might lead to the loss of the rig) is preferable to dissipating it in the hull (which can and has sunk the vessel). On my carbon rig the aluminum sail track is used as a lightening conductor (it is more conductive than the #4 copper recommended by ABYC) and grounded to the keel, so no extra weight is involved.
My point is, I do not believe there is empirical evidence to support lightening resistance as the primary reason to choose aluminum over carbon in a sailboat rig.
Perhaps the best strategy is to raft up next to a much larger boat during lightening storms. This is similar to the joke about not having to outrun a pursuing bear, you just have to outrun your companions....
So with all the masts being replaced with carbon, and new boats being made from carbon, has the cost to produce/replace dropped
significantly or am I dreaming. Can mass purchase/order reduce costs or is it a supply and demand issue?
I don't have an authoritative answer. But the primary costs seem to be the carbon material and finishing labor, neither of which is going to drop a lot with modest volume. At least at Composite Engineering they already have the tooling and it must already be paid for. But I am sure they could work more efficiently building, say 5 or 10 at a time than one. A savings in labor is no doubt possible with some automation, but to justify that investment would probably take an order for 100.
One alternative would be to purchase the carbon tube, and do all the finishing yourself. I don't think this is out of the range of anyone handy with a few tools and some experience with fiberglass lamination. The tube itself probably represents less than 1/4 of the labor of the mast ready to step.
I’m not sure whether CF has come down in price as a material, but I know that the cost of glass and epoxy has gone up. And shipping it anywhere, that cost has gone way up. As for labor, it depends on their building methodology, mold type, and curing. You might get a little bit of a discount for asking for a pile of sticks at once, but I wouldn’t think much of one.
Haven’t worked with CF or Kevlar yet, but… I happen to need a new mast for my Sanderling. And I still have the old one. The stuff of Friday afternoon at-work daydreams, for sure.
The vang effect is the result of the wishbone directed upward towards the mast preventing the outboard end of the wishbone from rising with increasing wind load. The vang pushes up (resisted by the choker) instead of pulling down as with conventional booms. Since the leech of the sail supports the after end of the wishbone, the weight of the wishbone only becomes a factor in light air when the topping lift may be used to take the weight off the leech to prevent cupping.
The 260, 324 and 354 all came with C/F wishbones.
Jerry
Yeah, that would be a fun project for the winter but I would have to find a 60’ heated basement with good ventilation! Wife hates when I do bright work in basement. Go figure, I love the smell. Buying a blank tube and adding your own track and hardware caught me attention though!
A year or more ago, I reported to the LIST the costs of CF masts from Composite Engineering for the various models. At the time, I’d also investigated the cost savings if 5 or 10 masts were ordered at the same time. Even if all were the same, say spars for 30s, there would be no saving for 5 and minimal savings for 10. Labor/labour is what it is and materials are what they are. Actually shipping and handling is the biggest variable in costs unless all the masts went to one place. Call any carrier and ask them how much to ship just an empty box that is 60’ x 1’ x 1’ from Concord, Massachusetts to the location of your boat. Even air is expensive to ship, let alone several hundred pounds of Nonsuch mast.
“Mass order” is a relative term. More carbon fiber is used in the very small numbers of Champ, Indy, and Formula One cars (where cost is no object whatsoever), in just one year, than will ever be used building Nonsuch masts.
Demand for carbon fiber is skyrocketing around the world. Double digit year over year increase in demand has been growing faster than supply. Boeing’s new, mostly CF, 787 Dreamliner production alone is sucking up the world CF supplies at a prodigious rate. The auto industry has been messing around with CF for the same reason as aircraft builders . . . BIG fuel savings from BIG weight reductions. Due to CF, every 787 will be 15 TONS lighter than if built with aluminum.
If anyone has a couple of billion dollars and wants to get richer over the next 10-20 years, you might want to get into the CF manufacture and supply business.
I’d bet CF masts and booms will only get more and more and more expensive in that same timeframe.
Cheers,
Arthur Langley
BEAR AWAY 30C 54 1980 BEAR AWAY 30C 14 1979 BROADWAY 30U 426 1987
Wells ME Wells Harbor South Baymouth ON Toronto ON Royal Canadian YC
New Hampshire & Maine Fleet Lake Huron Fleet West-Lake Ontario Fleet
tel 860.415.0502 cel 207.459.6410 tel. 207.449.1980
There are good ships, there are wood ships, and these ships sail the sea But the best ship, is friendship and may this always be! Irish Poem
Oh, but you want more bendy-bendy at the top and less bendy-bendy at the bottom, don’t you? So while a static cross-section along the mast would technically work, probably its best to get one that’s a little more pleasing to the eye among other things. Otherwise we’d all have aluminum tubing masts instead of our special tapered pretty ones.
Had the chance to speak with Wylie once, his are designed for the bending. The static shape more approximates the much sought after elliptical plan than our straight poles, and probably the deviation under loads pushes it further into an elliptical plan…
Maybe you don’t necessarily need a heated basement… doesn’t pre-preg have to stay cold until time to kick? You’d just have to build a really long skinny oven somewhere. It’s a different stink than brightwork. I’m not an advocate of marital discord, and this is not at all to put ideas in your head… But I noticed a disturbing string of stories at the wedding reception, every time Russell wanted to build a boat in the backyard at a young age, he’d have the Bill of Materials turned into his Dad just before his Mom would leave on a long trip to Florida or a mission trip to Timbuktu (not quite literally, but thereabouts), and that his Dad would return from the airport from dropping her off with a truck full of the required construction materials, and dubious quantities of junk food. (I hope to avoid similar subterfuge by either being an advocate of boat projects or simply keeping my trap shut after only a vague dissension with rational concerns.)
The CF mast tube, unpainted, is half the cost of a finished mast from
Composite Engineering.
The shipping cost is the same for the tube or a finished mast.
Cheers,
Arthur Langley
BEAR AWAY 30C 54 BEAR AWAY 30C 14 BROADWAY 30U 426
Wells ME Wells Harbor South Baymouth ON Toronto ON Royal Canadian YC
NH & Maine Fleet Lake Huron Fleet West-Lake Ontario Fleet
Most of the strength is in the bare tube, it is really only thing that should be autoclaved. The rest of the stuff is reinforcing patches and hardware attachments, all done with normal room temp curing resins laminated by hand in small pieces. On the other hand, it would be very difficult to duplicate the bare tube at home, not just because of the autoclave, but for the lack of the very peculiar braiding machine that is used.
My boat was built for me in 1986. For one reason or another, I went through
two accumulator tanks before hearing from a boatyard person that new boats
don't have them. I do not know if this is true. My boat has operated for
several years without an accumulator tank and still has the origional water
pump.
I nope Murphy, famous for his Law, does not read this and decide to have at
my water pump.
First of all you might try to drain the tank and then check the air pressure in the tank and possibly pump it back up a bit. On my boat I regularly drain the tank and afterword always notice a great improvement in pressure and less cycling when the pump is running
Walter - I got tired of my pump being reluctant to prime, so I threw it out and bought a new pressure pump this year. Works great and it was easy to install. All of the new ones are designed to work without an accumulator - but keeping it in the line shouldn't hurt.
If I recall, it was always fairly normal on KANIK for the pump to run a bit to build up pressure again after the system had been turned off for a while. Where you need to worry is if it runs every few minutes even when you are not running water.
So - you have lots of options -
1) ignore it
2) work on sealing the accumulator tank and other places where there might be a small pressure leak
3) replace the accumulator tank (Personally, I would be reluctant to suspect it)
4) put in a new pressure pump and either keep or eliminate the accumulator tank.
Bruce Anderson
KANIK NS30U 286
Mimico Cruising Club
Unlike a home pressure tank with an internal air bladder, I believe the inexpensive pressure tanks used on boats simply rely on the air captured above the water in the tank for compression. The water inlet and exit fittings are on the bottom of the tank, and the air above cannot escape, giving you the stored pressure you desire.
If there is a small air leak, or even over time if the air is replaced by water, then there is no more compression and therefore no stored pressure when the water faucet is turned on. To remedy, disconnect one of the hoses at the bottom of the tank and allow the water to drain. Then reconnect the hose and see if it works better.
If the tank has a threaded plug at the top of the tank, check it for tightness while the tank is empty. If necessary, remove it and re-seal it.
