Beat me to it Evan. They lost some rudders on round the world racers
a few years back because they didn't understand this principle.

You could actually weaken the mast by adding carbon fiber to it
without taking any wood off. If the CF isn't strong enough to take
the entire load, in which case you wouldn't need the wood, it will
break. This will concentrate all the bending stress in the wood at
the point of the CF crack and the mast will nip right off. This would
be most likely in an unstayed mast that functions primarily in bending
but I wouldn't fool with the fiber in a stayed mast either.


--

Roger Long



"Evan Gatehouse" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Anyone have any thoughts on shaving say 10-12 mm of material off a
wooden mast and laminating it with carbon fiber and epoxy. ??

Carzy_Carl

It's a bad idea. Carbon fiber is sooo much stiffer than wood that
it will only work if there is enough CF to take the entire load.
Otherwise the carbon fails first, then the weaker wood mast fails.

Evan Gatehouse