2018 Mast Update: Ovington Boats recommends the evaluation programme now terminates and the class continue with the existing Selden spars.
RECOMENDATION
Ovington Boats recommends the evaluation programme of a mast from an alternative supplier now terminates and the class continue with Selden spars.
BACKGROUND
At the request of the committee, driven by sailor requests, Ovington Boats has been following a two tracked process to increase the durability and reliability of the MUSTO Skiff spars. There have been revisions for improvement with the existing Selden spar (detailed here). We also considered a design, development and tested a new spar from an alternative supplier.
This programme has been quite lengthy and in the process we have learned that the alternative suppliers can offer spars to the same bend characteristics as our current mast, without too much difficulty. However, we did not find sufficient perceived improvements that outweigh keeping our existing spar. In the same period we have seen developments made to Seldon’s spar, which have improved reliability and sales of replacements are at the lowest levels in recent years.
Based on this our recommendation is to terminate the trials of the spar from an alternative supplier and continue to supply Selden spars. We will continue further testing of yet another alternative track to seek to improve durability further.
We have learned a great deal through this process that could prove useful in the future. The testing of the alternative mainsail design will of course continue as planned.
CONCLUSION
We hope this will end the period of uncertainty over the spars and we are pleased with the improved performance of the revised Selden spar. As detailed in the link above, the 2017 Mast Update can be found here.
