Our new aluminum mast has arrived. It was purchased partially completed (due to our budget) from Klacko Spars. It is their K35 extrusion, with welded masthead and compression tubes. A beautiful job and mast!!

The reason for our switch to an aluminum mast is as follows. We wanted to have two forestays, one at the original fractional point (13/16) and a masthead in addition. The inner fractional one carrying our harken furler. The outer masthead wire left bare, for our large genoa or storm jib. The sitka spruce mast we have tapers wonderfully at the top, and thus is ill suited to a masthead rig of any sort. I briefly considered modifying the spruce mast, which i’m sure could be done, or building a new wood mast. Time, and my skill-set ( i am a metal worker/welder) steered me to the aluminum extrusion. The redesigned rig ( of which i will at some point post the complete drawings) now sports double spreaders. This is because with a single set of spreaders, our taller mast (39’8″) and our narrow beam (9’6″) make it impossible to maintain the 12 degrees necessary at the shroud-masthead intersection. The double spreaders relieve this, allow for a shorter spreader and healthy staying angles throughout.