2013 JTA Questionaire

Outline of JTA Questionnaire Results on Carbon Mast Design

August 2013

Japan Tasar Association

 

The Japan Tasar Association carried out questionnaires on whether the JTA members wish to accept sail design change upon introduction of carbon mast. It was done for almost one month between June 10th and July 7th. The options for selection were as follows.

  1. The sail design shall be renewed. (The mast shall get longer and the sail area be enlarged.)
  2. The carbon mast shall be manufactured so that it can fit the existing sail design.

In addition to selecting the above options, the JTA members were allowed to freely express their opinions on this matter.

Twenty-eight valid responses were received. Among them, ten responses favored the option A; sixteen the option B. Two didn't choose either one.

The questionnaire results show that the members who wished to use the existing sail outnumbered the ones who didn't.

Some members who favored the option A are interested that due to the increased performance of the Tasar the class will attract more sailors.

Some other members who chose the option A, while being not keen about increasing performance, allow the sail design to be renewed because of rationality of development, trying to avoid such design that would end up in irrationally-engineered mast to fit the existing sail.

The other opinions:

-          Some members propose maintaining the target weight on the crew weight rule or, on contrary, eliminating the same rule in exchange for accepting the sail design change.

-          Some others wish to be able to continue using the existing sail even if both new mast and new sail are introduced, meaning that they can arbitrarily choose either the existing or the new sail for races.

Some members who favored the option B express the concern that the one-design concept of Tasar will not be maintained if a new sail design is introduced. The boats with various levels of performance will be forced to compete during the transition period when new masts as well as new sails are mixed with the old types. The transition period for mast will be quite longer because sailors tend to be reluctant to replace a highly-priced mast.

Some others worry about the cost of renewal. Buying both new mast and new sail will cost you more even if newly-introduced sails increase boat performance.

The transition period would get longer if both new mast and new sail were introduced, and some are concerned that the Tasar community's activity stagnates during that period.

The others didn't choose either option. They argue that carbon mast shall not be introduced at all because it gives an additional financial burden. They point out that we should stick to the principle we agreed upon at Torbay that the carbon mast shall fit the existing sail and also the price shall be equal to the existing aluminum mast or less.

The following questions were raised in the questionnaire process.

- Would the existing sails be supplied as before, even if new sails were introduced?  Mast usually has longer life cycle than sail, and it would take a long time for all of Tasars to be equipped with new carbon masts. Could both new and old sails be continued to be supplied?

- How about boom?  Will boom be made of carbon?