Seldén Mast at the Coutts Quarter Ton Cup

by Hannah Yuill, Seldén Mast 4 Aug 2009 10:36 BST 3 August 2009

The recently held Coutts Quarter Ton Cup provided fantastic racing for a fleet of 27 Quarter Ton yachts covering a wide span of ages and designs. Tough Solent conditions provided the competitors with a great challenge matched by the depth of talent in the fleet. This made for an extremely hard fought for series, in fact with the lead changing nightly and the final winning margin only 0.5 of a point competition couldn't be closer.

The top end of the fleet saw success by those that had converted the yachts to be competitive under IRC, the original IOR configuration of the yachts is not necessarily favoured. Many owners have taken the opportunity to step a simple single aft swept spreader rig during hull renovations. The Seldén C126 keelboat section is the ideal solution to this new modern style rig configuration.

The modern design of the C126 section with a long fore/aft profile allows loads generated by the crew (mainsheet, vang, outhaul,etc.) to be transferred to the mainsail and on into the mast. As the mainsail is designed to the expected curve of the mast, a longitudinally stiff mast allows for less luff curve on the sail. Instead, this sail area measured under IRC as mainsail widths (MHW, MTW & MUW), can be added to the roach of the sail, here it is more efficient. The longitudinal stiffness of this mast section also makes for higher forestay tensions by transmitting cap shroud tension efficiently into the forestay. Seldén Mast equipped boats carry this edge upwind, when high forestay tensions create closer winded upwind sailing.

Seldén Mast proudly congratulate all of the competitors at the Coutts Quarter Ton Cup, especially:
1 Anchor Challenge, Peter Morton - 29.5, IRC converted using Seldén C126
3 Bullet, Howard Sellars & Mike Till - 39, IRC converted using Seldén C126
5 ASAP, Layton/Christie/Crawford/Churchill - 52, IRC converted using Seldén C126
10 Snoopy, David Tydeman - 99, IRC converted using Seldén C126

Other Seldén C126 equipped yachts included Great Bear, Full Circle and Lancelot. Many yachts in the fleet also used Seldén B104 boom section and Seldén SC059 lightweight carbon spinnaker poles for super fast gybing.

Last years winner Tom Bombadil and others such as Catch and Supernova where not present this year but have found new homes overseas where their Seldén C126 masts will provide them with a competitive edge in their new fleets.

For information on Seldén Mast please visit www.seldenmast.com and for all your Quarter Tonner needs contact: Richard Adams - - 01329 504000