Since last year we did see a new development in A-cat masts with a shorter overall length of 8.40 meter. The first one trying en testing this was Andrew Landenberger.
He shorted his mast to see what would be the result in performance, so he adapted the sail and to his surprise, it was faster with more wind and he did suffer speed in the lower wind scale. It was a good improvement also for handeling the boat overall.
We at Saarberg masts started to build a purpose mast at this length with a new lay-up of the carbon layers to refine the mast bent and made an adaption to the top of the mast to be able to flatten the sail easier.
The sailmakers have also made new sails for this new model of mast and the top sailors are now using this new rig with very good results, The shorter length made it possible to foil up wind more efficiently as a result of the lower pressure point in the rig. The smaller and lighter sailor is also helped wind this development and makes foiling easier for them too.
With the new model mast another benefit was that the weight of the mast could also be reduced with no loss of strenght this made us still the lightest production mast in the class , and this maintains the low breakage reputation.
We make the masts for the Classic and Foiling A-cat and they will fit the deck sweeper sails.
For more information contact Piet Saarberg at psaarberg(at)catamaranparts.nl or by phone at +31 6 534 080 75