This was a really cool project. It’s always awesome when we get to make improvements on our boat and especially if it involves putting some carbon fibre on it. Actually, this video covers two projects simultaneously: while Shayne is busy chopping up sections of ex-America’s cup challenger mast pieces to fit the front of Paikea, Anna is in the sail loft recutting an RC44 spinnaker down to fit as our new fractional asymmetrical spinnaker. It’s a challenge as we can’t actually measure the luff length for the new sail as Shayne is still to make and fit the new bow pole. We are just hoping we did our homework correctly and it will all go together just fine.
We managed to get our hands on some pieces of an old America’s Cup mast (the same as the carbon rig we made into a rotating wing mast). The pieces were already cut into sections, so we were limited in size and length. This meant that we had to use 3 mast sections. The longest piece which was actually the top piece of the mast, we used as our bow pole and longeron. The other 2 thicker shorter sections are attached to each side of the bow pole and actually join through the hull. Our old arrangement was heavy with no option for a storm sail attachment or pole to fly a gennaker so this option now allows us to use an inner forestay as well as the ability to fly spinnakers and a code 0 from the end of the bow pole.
It wasn’t a project we had the time to complete either. We had 2 weeks before we were going to haul Paikea to work on the hull. Nothing like adding a bit of pressure to an already big job. We got it done though and although we still need to do some finishing off the boat looks awesome.