utcminusfour said..
Thanks Paducah!
It interesting. I can't argue the good points of Tuttle, only 2 bolts, lighter and less drag when the board is in the water. Those are just facts. Are they most important details for all of us, that's grayer.
PWA is still Tuttle.
Patrick talks about stiffness a lot with his Aeon set ups but chooses Tuttle. I think with the ever-smaller wings they ride the stiffness is good enough and drag is the priority.
Adrian at Axis is also focused on stiffness and says Tuttle is not the answer because the foil wants to be thicker at the board connection than the Tuttle is. Makes sense right the biggest loads are at the connection to the board.
Intuitively from a structural point of view, I like a tapered composite mast with a thicker top and molded in plate. With my ever-increasing front wing size, I need all the stiffness I can get, and I am considering a used Axis fatty mast to gain the added stiffness of a monocoque plate and tapered thickness.
I have thought about recessing the track, because as a garage shaper I can. I typically don't move the mast once I have things dialed in. Just make the top of the plate flush with the bottom of the board.
The other thought I have is for the foil builders. Keep the Tuttle conceptually, just make it thicker so the top of the mast can be thicker.
The slingshot rake adjustment shims are puzzling, for it to work it has to ignore the importance of the full contact wedging at the front and back walls. Perhaps they are just for fore and aft location, such that if you are not full forward or full aft you use two shims one each side of the mast. We all just associate shims with rake, maybe they should call them spacers.
Good Points Heres my 2 cents worth
I think there are a few mast manufactures that have lengthen the mast cord near the top (and still use a tuttle) Then minimized the thickness and cord nearer the bottom to get the best drag, stiffness and board connectiion(tuttle). I have not tried the 95cm F4 race mast which falls into this category and seemed to have good reviews
I am not sure about the shims either, for the reason of connection compromise, as I have been told by manufactures that the tuttle system is designed to take all the load in the friction fit at the ends of the mast/box. But if you have a front and back shim, both at the same angle to accept the tuttle mast head I believe the friction fit would be maintained. Its more about transferring the load to the box thru the shims; as the shims will have some very small space on either side to allow them to slide into the oversized tuttle. If you imagine shims 1/2 the width of a box and the resulting play they would have it gives you an idea of what I am describing. I guess we will find out.
IMHO a simple tuttle and a simple mast; with my board builder setting the mast angle works great form me. Given some folks will like to have flexibility I am just happy we are seeing some additional tuttle mast options; just hoping the bolt pattern fits in the standard tuttle box. Oh when the PWA racers start using the oversized box I may look into it 😂
