UV protection for carbon mast.

UV degrades the resin, and then the fibre falls off. Usually under your fingernails...

White paint is undoubtedly best. Next is pale coloured paint. Although a lot of varnishes are claimed to be UV opaque, varnish does seem to peel after a while to a far far greater extent than white paint, which makes me suspect that outer layer of varnish the resin was bonded to is still suffering, albeit to a much lesser extent. If your spar lives in the garage I imagine varnish is fine, but if its out in the weather 24*7 I personally, and without real evidence, don't trust it.

Originally posted by jeffers If you have an unstayed mast you can get a sock that you can hoist using the halyard. I guess you could get something similar done for a stayed mast but it would be quite fiddly to get it to sit right.

Chris Gould at Creation Covers does those mast covers that you can hoist on unstayed rigs.  I've seen some on OK's and they looked pretty good. 
Not sure it would really be doable if the mast has shrouds and spreaders though....

A guy at Hunts had his Phantom mast painted in white 2 pack with the plasticiser they user on car bumpers mixed in, worked really well and looked good after several years where varnished masts were showing signs of needing attention.

Thanks again.