Re: Skerry mast.

Posted by CLC on Feb 14, 2008

Couple of reasons the Skerry's mast doesn't rotate:

1. There are no compelling performance advantages on the water.

2. It seriously complicates construction if home builders do it, and would be unaffordable if we did it that way in the pre-cut kit.

3. Although round masts were common in traditional smallcraft, in reality few of them actually turned in the step. It's hard to overcome the friction without complicated measures and, again, few performance advantages once you've gone to all that trouble.

4. If you CAN get a round Skerry mast to rotate, the stock CLC boom gooseneck will probably cause over-rotation, which can damage the gooseneck or break the boom. All of the CLC proas, with rotating masts, have this problem and most of them break their booms unless rotation-limiters are fitted.

If it's an aesthetic thing for you, my recommendation would be to keep the butt of the mast square, so you don't have gooseneck trouble, and round the rest of the mast. You'll need to start with a larger square blank because if you round off the stock 1-7/8" square mast, it'll lose too much strength.

In Response to: Skerry mast. by Christine DeMerchant on Feb 5, 2008

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