HISTORY OF HOLLOW SPARS
Mast options today
CARBON
At the top of the cost pile is usually carbon;
most are based on standard sections, although
fully custom spars laid up to specific designs
are possible if the budget will run to it.
Serious racing yachts are almost entirely using
carbon now, but the benefits can apply to
other types of boat too.ALUMINIUM
Aluminium alloy is still a choice (and in some
classes mandatory); but the number of
manufacturers and the stock of sections held
has diminished significantly as carbon has
begun to infiltrate the market. Aluminium still
often offers a cost-effective and tough option
with few maintenance issues, but some older
masts fitted in the 1960s and 1970s are now
starting to show signs of age. Nearly all
alloy spars are based on standard extrusions;
spars constructed from rolled plate are
now vanishingly rare.
There are several manufacturers who can
supply either carbon or alloy; Selden are now
one of the biggest names and do both. Others
have specialised – Hall Spars & Southern Spars
are now carbon only.WOOD
Wood is still a very viable option for many
yachts. With classes like the 8-Metres
encouraging innovation, stiff sections coupled
to rod rigging have appeared in the past few
years and have been successful. Many of the
old fears of tying timber masts with high-tech
laminate sails have also been allayed. On the
other hand when competing on the classic
scene in the Med under the CIM rule, originality
is prized and there is a thriving industry
creating a new generation of fine timber spars
authentic in every detail.fashion. Katrina, a 70ft waterline length sparring partner
for the America’s Cup challenger Valkyrie I in 1889 was
reported to have a hollow boom. An unknown Gosport
UK builder constructed a “very sound spar”, dug out
and dowelled, which Ewing McGruer saw in the early
20th century and thought dated from the 1880s.
An Irish boatbuilder called John J Driscoll, the yacht
chargehand at the C&R Poillon shipyard of New York,
was credited with a remarkable boom for the America’s
Cup defence candidate Colonia in 1893. It was 97ft 6in
long and 22 inches in diameter. He constructed it with
round bulkheads of wood about apart, to which he
screwed a layer of 1¼in thick spruce battens. He then
rounded that layer off, screwed another layer over,
rounded inside and out, staggering the joints and seams.
He secured the whole with a series of wire-rope seizings.
By the 1890s, the enthusiasm for sailing canoes
and very light raters in the USA had proved a further
impetus to develop lightweight spars. The British
half-rater Microbe by Sibbick was imported to the
USA in 1895, and described there as “no racing
machine...and her spars! They are solid sticks, all
except the bamboo yard, and their weight alone
would throw her out of any competition with any
first class American boat”.
The American sailing canoe spars of Paul Butler of
Lowell, Mass, that he developed between 1885-90
were particularly notable; his method involved
wrapping and glueing three spiral spruce plies over a
mandrel. Butler was also noted for using aluminium
deck fittings in his effort to save weight.
Meanwhile, a now-forgotten joiner and stairmaker
in Bridgeport, Connecticut, who raced sandbaggers in
his spare time, was about to make a crucial
breakthrough and in so doing help found the
industry as we still know it today.Next month: the story continues to the modern day.Below: The
Sibbick half
rater MicrobeLIBRARY OF CONGRESSCOLLIERS