Carbon or not Carbon

Originally posted by MerlinMags I like the way carbon masts don't just benefit the top sailors. For the back-of-the-fleet fools like me: Easier to manage boat in strong winds without a big weight waving around in the sky above you Gust response - again makes life easier in the blowy stuff But oh, the cost!!! Someone sort that out, would ya?

 

Are Carbon masts really that expensive??  Most masts are retailing around £1000-£1500.  I think if you compare them to the cost of a set of sails they seem like good value.  Although i can appreciate if your pride and joy is an older model and not worth a great deal (money wse) that can seem like a hell of a lot of cash!!  But there seem to be more second hand or broken masts available on the market nowerdays and these seem to be forsale for around £500 making carbon affordable for the masses.

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by MerlinMags But oh, the cost!!! Someone sort that out, would ya? Well, all you need to do is sort out the cost of oil and energy and the price will drop like a stone...

 

Not really.

Carbon is about £100 a kilo, epoxy £20 a kg, so the raw material for a mast is a pretty small part of it. what does a bare merlin mast weigh? <4kg I think, so perhaps 2kg carbon, 2kg resin or £240 ish. The value is in putting it together right! Only mass production will drop the prices.

Originally posted by MerlinMags I seem to end up manufacturing an awful lot of carbon these days, what with a sudden inability to keep an eye on the toast under the grill. If I could only work out how to convert that to £100 a kilo... Sorry, lets get back on topic. I guess the £1500 cost for a Merlin mast is the large amount of time it takes to lay it up carefully in exactly the right way. Hard to see it ever being done by machines....?

I think you'll be suprised by what can be done with automated layup machines and filament winders. Also you can guarentee the lay-up on the automated systems, but in reality its down to economies of scale. A manufacturer isnt going to tool up with all the hi-tech auto kit if every mast he's going to make is required to be individually tailored to the buyer, but if you can get a large order for masts with exactly the same characteristics then it should be feasible to get the price down to the kind of price you'd pay for aluminium.

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by Dan Vincent So unless tightly controlled (as in a SMOD such as... D1, Musto, RS800) expect change to carbon masts to be accompanied by costs not just increasing but multiplying. Can you point to a non-Olympic class where that's happened?

I don't want to be accused of class-bashing, but OKs definitely went from being cheaper than a Solo, to more expensive than a Solo when they introduced carbon masts. As someone who was considering buying both at the time the uncertainty and speculation about manufacturers like Ceileidh (spellcheck) who may be able to produce super quick (but very expensive masts) in moulds, with inflatable bladders and high modulus fibres blah-blah, drove me towards the Solo option. 

I am sure that many OK sailors think going to carbon masts was a good move, and has made the boats better, but from outside the class it is difficult to see what has been gained.