General gelcoat layers are 1 to 2 mm thick, mast coatings are measured in microns. Takes a whole lot longer to wear 1-2 mm down then a few microns.

Besides I have recoated/rebuffed and repainted my hulls a few times but never my alu mast.

Now I'm not saying carbon is bad, never did, just that I'm suspecious of carbon "simply" being superior in most aspects among which durability. But I'm happy to agree to disagree. No disrespect intended on my part.





Indeed, we can wait quite a few years for that. And labour costs needs to come down as well. Humm, this is maybe a bit too sarcastic, Please don't take offense, none intended.

Sure alu masts costs when only building a handful of boats, you have to order a minimum of 40 mast, but when building around 20 boats a year or more (all the succesful classes) then extruded alu masts can be inmensely more cost effective from the builders perspective then carbon masts. We can easily be talking about a 1000 bucks difference per mast. Now I know that you Darryll have a different opinion on this and I understand your reasoning. Indeed in a batch of 40 mast you will have several crooked ones that you need to through away. However I've been involved in several superwing mast orders and I know exactly what it costs. Even with the discarded mast and shipping the costs of aluminium is very attractive compared to carbon when building a series of boats beyond 20.

It will not be easy at all to see carbon masts beat that.

However, Stealth Marine is doing it and they are, afterall, the most inexpensive F16's available (big credit to John Pierce and Sue). And I'm looking forward to you putting on carbon masts on your F16's as well.

The secret here is in-house production of carbon mast. If you have to get them from a supplier then forget about any serious cost reductions. These supplier will have you pay for their carbon masts.

With knowing the costs of a 40 mast Superwing mast batch I can tell everybody that I don't see carbon mast completely replace the alu ones anytime soon.

Wouter