I must admit that the superwing aluminium wing mast was us getting lucky without truly knowing it at the beginning of the class. Of course we thank AHPC for allowing other builders to use that section on their boats. It was one of the best things they ever did. It largely nipped the drive for carbon masts in the butt. I have the alu mast on my own boat and I can truly say that I'm very happy that I never got a custom carbon stick. It made my homebuild seriously cheaper and I really don't see any significant disadvantage of having one. The cross section shape taps into the extra performance very well without being made of carbon and the overall weight is very low. The Superwing mast is really a good piece of engineering not seen in 95 % of the other alu mast, I'm sorry but it is true.

Maugan is right.

Let me give you a quick comparison between the alu mast of an existing modern 17 foot singlehander and the superwing mast. Both are the same length and feature the exact same mainsail sail area.

Unspecified modern single hander

Length 8.5 mtr. with about 15 sq.mtr. mainsail area
Weight bare mast section About 17.0 kg / 8.5 mtr = 2.00 kg / mtr
main axis = About 0.155 mtr
small axis = About 0.085 mtr
Weight fully rigged = 19.8 kg (measured data)
Tip weight = about 9.05 kg


Superwing

length 8.5 mtr take typically about 15 sq. mtr. mainsail area
Weight bare mast section 13.5 kg / 8.5 mtr = 1.59 kg / mtr
main axis = 0.15 mtr
small axis = 0.063 mtr
Weight fully rigged = 15.5 kg
Tip weight = 7.3 kg


The lightest carbon mast for the F16's (the lighter ones broke)

length 8.5 mtr take typically about 15 sq. mtr. mainsail area
Weight bare mast section 9.8 kg / 8.5 mtr = 1.15 kg / mtr
main axis = About 0.15 mtr
small axis = About 0.063 mtr
Weight fully rigged = 12.0 kg
Tip weight = 5.5 kg

Note how the superwing is closer in overall weight to the minimal carbon mast than it is to an aluminium mast of its competition ? The fact that it is also of the same crossection shape as the carbon mast makes it very similar in behaviour.

Also note that it will take about (9.05 - 7.3) * 8.5 mtr / 1.2 mtr. = 15.5 kgs ! (= 34 lbs) more on the righting line to right the heavier alu mast over the superwing section. From Superwing to minimal carbon F16 mast is another 12 kg's. But getting back to the alu masts.

The mast of the single hander betrays its orgin with the 2 kg/mtr weight of the bare section. It is an F18 mast section that was cut down for use on the singlehander model. This is what is typically done with singlehanders. The builder takes the boards, mast, beams and other stuff of their much heavier F18 model and uses those to assemble an "optimal" singlehander. Often the area and length of the daggerboards are way off and the mast is too heavy and too stiff to allow proper depowering or gust responses.

One other thing to note is that the alu superwing rig is only 3.5 kg heavier than the carbon one. That on a total of mast , sails, stays, halyards, boom, trapezes etc of about 29 kg (64 lbs). I'm sure that lighter is always better but I'm not so sure wether saving 3.5 kg on 29 kg in total is worth its cost in terms of gained performance. On my own boat I have no troubles with dive recovery what so ever. And that is the point that is arguably most helped by a lighter rig.

One extra advantage of the alu mast is that you can let that one stay on the boat when it is parked somewhere waiting for you to return next weekend. No damage due to the wind vibriting it to bits or UV degradation. The first is a typical problem with very light carbon masts.

Wouter