A two-pat mast seems to be the best bet. 

  A telescoping mast would also be a great fit, but that's a more complex design, and you would lost anti-turtle flotation in one half the mast.  I do believe that a telescoping mast could be done, but I also wouldn't want to be one of the early adopters.

  Robert's idea of a gunter would certainly work.  However, I'd personally rather have a rig that makes it easy to raise and stow the sails in any wind, either with roller-reefing or using slides/cars and lazy jacks.  It would probably be more time-consuming to go from sail cover to gunter and back again, especially if single-handed.

  I'd have a pro design a two-part mast, though.  There is some serious stress in an unstayed rig, and while it's easy to design for, it does have to be designed for.  A joint introduces other stresses, so I'd want it designed by a professional who has access to good Finite Element Analysis software.

  Cutting a mast and rejoining it could be done, but it probably wouldn't be pretty, and more importantly, you'd lose the ability to pass stress through nice, long, continuous carbon fibers.  That said, if the patch were thick enough and long enough, it could work.  I'd still want someone to do FEA, though, to make sure how long and thick the patch would have to be.

       - Mike

 

Gardner Pomper wrote:

Hi,

 

Still trying to figure a good rig for a boat that wants alot of sail area (Rare Bird-ish), but can still be shipping in a container. The 2 part masts sound doable, but difficult. I was wondering if it makes sense to just build a regular 1 part mast, 50-60 feet long, then cut it in half, if I do end up shipping the boat in a container. It will cost at least $6000 to ship the boat, so I can't imagine doing it more than 2-3 times in my life (who knows, maybe I never will). Does it make sense to just cut the mast, stick it in the container and then repair it at the destination?

 

Thanks,

- Gardner