I read somewhere that in the early days of the Tornado, they did some A/B testing of inflatable sails. I think one boat had the soft sloop rig and the other had a unarig with an inflatable sail. The unarig kicked butt.

I think wing masts haven't really caught on with smaller boats because the weight of a wing rig is too much for that size of platform. The masts tended to act as pile drivers and even some of the early C-class boats suffered broken main beams etc.

Maybe a wing mast could be made using a conventional metal spar surrounded by styrofoam or an inflatable set up. This would keep most of the benefits of a simple wing rig while keeping weight aloft down and reducing the pile driver effect.

David Ho
TheMightyHobie18 1067