The Perfect Fit

You know how sometimes, when you slip your mast in, it just fits perfectly? And just feels right? Well it was like that for me on Saturday afternoon when I inserted my new gaastra mast into my trusty 4.2 at Oleander. Finally I had the perfect fit, it felt good and I had a nice long ride.

Masts vary a lot in their stiffness and curves. This website has a pretty big mast curve database and an interesting discussion on mast curves (geek tendencies required). I took the data and plotted it for skinny 400s. I found this plot really useful because you can use it to see what other alternate masts are out there to fit your sail.

A while back I bought a Naish 400 RDM as a spare for my Gaastra. The bend curves are almost identical. I subsequently snapped my Gaastra during Hurricane Irene and have been using the Naish with 4.7 to 5.6 ever since. So the Naish should be perfect right? Wrong. My sails looked good rigged but they felt heavy and dull when compared to the perfection that I had become used to. I didn't get it until I looked at the stiffness plot. The Naish is way stiffer! Maybe for a heavier guy this would be a better set-up. For me, I'm thinking even more flexibility could be good, maybe I should try the Severne Red Line next?