Finally convinced a friend that his carbon/aluminium mast would be better on Shazza than in his shed for years while he finds the time/money to build his next boat.
The mast was 10 metres long so you can see the cut off piece below. The mast is a 90's model 18ft skiff mast before they went to full length carbon masts. Funny, now I have a mast that is exactly half carbon/ half aluminium. The base is 85mm OD and the tip is approximately 30mm.
This mast is far lighter than the full aluminium mast we have been using--could not tell you how much except to say it takes two arms to pick up our current mast and this one is a one arm job.
The mast tip is very slender, I think it will either break first go or last forever---fingers crossed for the latter.
Lower spreaders (aluminium) are off getting modified, the upper spreaders (see photo) are carbon and in the wrong place at the moment--I am scared of cutting them off at the moment cause the look really good, but I will cut when I get to that stage. I have put on the new goose neck and have modified the lower spreaders (added extra length) with carbon tube similar to what I did with the aluminium mast and will fair the new spreaders a lot better than the aluminium mast (which were not faired at all).
