Wouter,

You realy have work on being a little less wordy.

In looking at what is available, it seams just to not matter. We are currently limited in available materials, carbon and aluminum being the most often used. As you point out, there is very little difference in finished assembled weight between these 2 materials GIVEN the same exterior cross section and design loads.

The advantages between the 2 materials can be sumed up as:

ALUMINUM; Inexpensive (in quantity)
CARBON; Ajustable. (Laminates can be tapered and modified to put strength or stiffness wherever necessary to meet the sail makers desire. It is also molded so varying cross section is possible if desired)

Anyone can build a super light mast for an F16, but nature is going to break most of those. The design loads are going to naturaly limit the reliable minimum. I am a firm believer in that given boats that are within reasonablely close proximity to one another in specs, the end determination in finish is controlled by the crew.

Except from the potential question of safety, I would have no problem in eliminating the mast tip weight from the F16 rules given they are made from carbon or aluminum. When someone invents that miracle material we have all be waiting for then maybe we could re-evaluate it.

Matt