You are not going to safe 18 lbs when going from an Alu F16 mast to an carbon F16 mast. The masts made by stealth marine and other for the F16 have a tip weight when rigged of at least 5.25 kg and that is before any tip weight is added. This is in line with the carbon mast weighting overall at mimimum 11.5 kg (25 lbs). This was by the way the lightest F16 mast weighted, several others were much closer to the required min 6 kg tipweight. It was also a pure singlehanding mast, if I remember correctly.

38 lbs for the Alu superwing sounds about right, but this surely included the proctor spreader arms and a mainsail halyard, spi halyard and spi gate. Of course the A-cat mast at 20 lbs doesn't have any of that. So we must add that as well before subtracting the two numbers and finding out what kind of weight can be saved overall. I also hear some Blade F16 sailors are sailing with stock 6 mm dyneema as spi halyard that is far too much as well. 4 mm is enough, even for bare hands. But I'm getting of track her.

Basically the maximal weight savings that can be had are limited to 5 kg = 11 lbs when all is said and done. Not 18 lbs = 8 kg. The tip weight often limits this a little bit more.

I don't think 5000 USD is a realistic price for an F16 carbon mast. Truth be told, when I inquired about having an alu mast replaced by a carbon blank the quote I got resulted in 1500 Euro price difference. Even at todays exchange rate that would only put the price ex shipping at 2200 USD. That leaves a very big chunk of budget for shipping. Stealth Marines quote was even less. At the time I still opted for the alu mast though, because as you know I like aluminium !

Wouter