RIBA's Marine division produces carbon components for the marine sector

RIBA Composites offers carbon fibre advantages at competitive costs.

Carbon fibre components are becoming more and more accessible to all levels of sailing. Modern manufacturing methods and better design ensure that this material is no longer solely for high budget, top racing sailing.

The use of carbon fibre for the manufacture of masts and marine components provides the opportunity for five appreciable advantages over aluminium: Less Weight; Dynamics; Aerodynamics, Stiffness variation, Charm

It’s now commonly known that carbon is significantly lighter than aluminium for the same strength.
However, the advantage of carbon is not only in weight. Dynamically, the spars behave differently. This has led to the use of stiffer spars (reduced thickness, varying according to different load and torsion areas); and this, in turn, has resulted in totally new rig/sail combinations that are superior to the old aluminium rigs.
A carbon mast better allows to obtain dynamic response in gusts and boat handling so that to adjust the stiffer rig through the range when needing power.

With the stiffer carbon masts, the mast is more raked back to flatten the sail section through twist.
The reduction in weight also allows the designer to use smaller sections, to take gains in windage as well as weight.
Yet another advantage: the spar can be engineered to varying stiffness up the entire length of the spar. An alloy extrusion has the same mechanical properties all the way to the taper. The carbon tube can be engineered such that the layers varies as needed up the spar to give the correct properties in each panel of the spar.

Costs and Gains

Nothing you create, nothing you destroy. The cost of carbon manufacturing is justified. The use of carbon for marine tools gives superior performance over aluminium for all the above reasons. How much of each advantage is obtained depends on the available budget.
The best manufacturing method for carbon tube is to have most of the fibres hand layed-up and oriented at zero degrees to the spar. They will be cured at high pressures with an accurate control over the amount of resin through the use of prepreg resin systems.

Less expensive manufacturing methods like filament winding are unable to lay enough fibres at zero degrees and may have more variation on resin content.

Design and Optimisation

Modelling a carbon tube based on the equivalent aluminium section for that boat is easy, but experienced RIBA designers will be able to provide a design which will out-perform the aluminium mast through being stiffer and having local reinforcements in the correct areas to ensure the mast bends and responds optimally.

The quality of design for each rig will provide a big difference in performance. Aluminium masts are made from fixed specification extrusions, whereas carbon masts can be engineered specifically for each boat. The more accurate information the mast designer has on the boat allows the better optimisation of the mast design.