Hi, I have an old Slalom sail that is specc'ed to use a 460 mast with no extension. The sail is variotop and as I bought a better 75% carbon mast that's much lighter than my original 25% carbon 460 I was wondering if using this combination will work OK. The idea is to let 30cm of space on top using the Variotop. Any ideas? Thanks!

JPBARNA said..
Hi, I have an old Slalom sail that is specc'ed to use a 460 mast with no extension. The sail is variotop and as I bought a better 75% carbon mast that's much lighter than my original 25% carbon 460 I was wondering if using this combination will work OK. The idea is to let 30cm of space on top using the Variotop. Any ideas? Thanks!

Are the masts the same brand?

When you put a longer mast in a sail you end up with a much stiffer rig (can't get the leach to twist off as much, rig is a bit heavier and pumping feels less responsive). It depends on your sail, sometimes this can be a good thing if you found your sail a bit too soft ... it's a real person preference thing.

The other thing is you are jumping from a 25% to 75% carbon mast and that's a big jump. More carbon means lighter weight and more responsiveness (ie, when you pump the mast flicks back quicker) which makes a big difference to your sail's performance. You might find the benefits of a 75% mast outweigh the negatives of a longer mast. Go try it!

The specs of the sail ask for a 25ICMS mast but I hate the weight it has :-)

JPBARNA said..

Both are cheap Decathlon Masts so the 25 carbon feels like 25 concrete and the 75 one is really more responsive and way much lighter. I don't know if it is harder or not. One es 25ICMS and the other is 28ICMS (the 75% carbon). Thanks!

Have to test it!

Impossible to say honestly. Sails are purposely designed around a specific bend profile of a mast and the more downhaul you need for a sail, the more critical the bend profile of the mast becomes. eg, most modern race sails cannot even be rigged on another brand of mast as the mast just won't bend in the right way to even get the correct downhaul. On wave/no-cam sails this is less pronounced; but still applies! So it's not always as simple as buying another mast... should really be the "correct" brand of mast for the sail.

But you can get lucky! Go and try it and see if it works.

It might be a bit stiff for the sail unless the sail is older and ask for a stronger imcs rating.