In a conversation Phill and I had about the fiberglass "faired" spreaders on the older Taipan 4.9's he mentioned to me he had measured the spreader width on another "chap"s" 4.9 and his spreaders were wider. Since I also have a Boyer Auscat CF mast sitting in the barn I went out and compared the 4.9 spreaders I removed from the ones on my Auscat mast (they looked basically the same and I had assumed they were- But you know what they say about "assuming"?!).

See attachment to see the picture of my black Auscat spreaders (on the black CF mast) compared to the white 4.9 spreader- Looked to me like they started out exactly the same but the 4.9 spreaders have had about 3/4ths of an inch cut off the ends and slotted for the spreaders.

So, for anybody "making up" a 4.9 mast you may want to consider using the Auscat spreaders rather than the "stock" 4.9 FG spreaders (if you don't want to go with the adjustable Proctor spreaders)-



Kirt

Kirt



your assumption is correct. The spreader arms are the same and are shortened for the Taipan to meet the class restrictions. I understand that the arms were set shorter on the T 4.9 to reduce damage to the jib on the sloop rig.



From my experience the adjustability of the Protors offers far more performance gains than the fixed glass arms.



Cheers





James

AUS 153 'Woof'

Thanks James, I was just deciding on which to get ! Proctors are the ones I'm getting then. Also more conveniant for me as I have sourced those already.



Wouter

James-



Thanks for the information. How do you feel about the "stock" AHPC bits to attach the Proctor arms to the Auswing mast? My underwtanding was there were some breakage experiences in Aus so I custom made (modified) a different front spreader arm attachment piece.



Thanks again!



Kirt

Kirt



I had concerns about the lightweight look of the standard fittings (you don't want to mess around with the primary structure of the boat) so I had some custom stainless steel brackets made up of a heavier guage ss. I'm not aware of any failures with the standard brackets although I have seen some distort a bit over time. I should add that it's been a couple of years since I saw the standard items and they may have changed in that time.



cheers



James