quote:
Originally posted by nebbian
OK here's a thought...
The problem is the high stress on a mast in a wave, vs the fact that you can't make it super strong because it has to bend for the sail shape. Right?
So why not make masts that have some of the bend built in?
Obviously you couldn't build all the bend in otherwise it wouldn't stretch the sail nice and tight, but perhaps just a bit of bend would mean you could make it just that little bit stronger...
That'd look interesting, pulling two big black bananas out of the car and rigging up...
Would make getting those d**n cams in a lot easier 
Cheers Nebbian.
I played around with pre-bent masts in the early days.
They worked well but rigging was problematic.
After lashing on the boom following downhaul,
outhauling had an annoying habit of twisting the mast on the Y axis.
That isn't a problem when a mast is cylindrical or conical.(normal)
However, when a mast is pre-bent,
the outside edges of the curves (luff pocket to mast bend) lose coincidence.
To solve that problem so the curves agreed following outhaul tensioning,
I would compensate a little when downhauling with a slight twist of the mast to the left or right.
bring back triangle sails and throw those batterens away 
