Phils Rig School continued...

Standardisation? Would it not be easier to have fewer types of boat then? that way we could have a mast and rig designed specifically for each boat and still get the benefits of higher volume because with fewer variations more people would be sailing each type.  We could stick with just the olympic classes like they do in loads of counties around the world.  Or we could go back to the old international rule (look it up on wiki). 

I'm being sarcastic to make the point.  You are contradicting yourself.  It is an interesting idea i grant you, but if someone like selden could make one mast for every type of boat do you not think they would have done so already? (and to be fair they are trying to make pretty much ever new one out of their series 3 carbon section if they can, so its going that way)

Another point is almost every class has a different length mast, so you would either need to change all the existing boats' designs, or have different length (emphasis on the word different) masts, inner and outer, for every type of boat anyway. 

Mast length determined by hull length? That is definately back to the international rule.  Have a look through the classes review in the latest issue of Y&Y and see how many different boats are around the 14' (4.27m) mark (as an example), does it have two trapeezes like an I14 or none like a merlin rocket or is it a single hander like a laser or supernova, and any one of maybe 30 other types of the same sort of length. 

Making the outer section modular would be a nightmare to engineer, would the sections be removable or would you bond them permanantly? how long would they be or would you get a number of lengths like scalextric track? Overlapping the sections to get a solid connection (however they attach) is going to put step changes in the bed characteristics, and a nasty series of stress concertrations throughout the structure.  To get a smoothe fair bend curve, you need a smoothe fair mast structure.  There maybe something more sound inn your theory that I can't see, but I really am stuggling to think of a way to make it work practically in the real world