Adventure Island mast on homebuilt?

I currently own a Hobie bravo and I am planning to build a small trimaran out of wood. I am looking for rig options and the size of the adventure island sail is perfect. I love the furling sail on my Bravo. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the mounting for the AI mast. Do you think it would be possible to mount the AI mast to a wood boat being built from scratch?

Also, does anyone know the length between the mast and where the main sheet meets the hull?

I have nearly bought a used BRAVO as it looks like fun, but I held off because I had Two preconceptions.

Mainly I believed I would need Two people to launch/recover it from the trailer as I am not very strong these days.
secondly at 6'2" (85Kg/187Lbs), I wondered if I was too lanky to fit on it with reasonable comfort.

I know this is unrelated but if you care to comment on your BRAVO experience I would appreciate it?

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Fair Skies, Max.

No reason why you couldn't fit it to any boat you like, it's just a (trimaran) mast, after all. Not sure I understand your question about the distance between the mast and where the mainsheet meets the hull, can you clarify this pleasè?

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Simon

Thank you daft, I will give that a try for the measurement. The boat I am building is only 10', so I just want to make sure I have enough distance to mount the main sheet block.

Also, does anyone know the diameter of the mast foot?

One more quick question. Is the luff pocket on the AI sail tapered or is it the same diameter the entire length? Do you know what diameter it is.

I am wondering if it might work better to just purchase the sail from Hobie and then make and use my own mast since it is for a home-built design.

Thanks Daft. Yes, those are some concerns; however, the boat I am building is designed around an unstayed mast up to about 68 Square feet of sail. Where the mast mounts to the boat is pretty deep so there is a fair amount of support on the bulkhead. The nice thing about a furling sail, which is why I would like to use the AI sail, is that I can easily reduce the sail area if I become over powered or experience some of the concerns you raised. Also, if the LOA is too short, I can always extend the main sheet block past the stern with a sprite of some sort. Lots of options when building from scratch.

The biggest thing right now I am working to figure out is the max diameter of mast that the AI luff sleeve will handle.

As a Bravo owner, I really like the Hobie sail design and would love to incorporate it in my build. The bravo is a great little boat that I plan to keep. I am building the trimaran for other purposes; kind of a mini cruiser that I can car top.

The AI Mast is basically just a standard diameter windsurfer mast so far as I can tell - I made an adapter for the smaller kayak sail to go into the AI mast 'cup' using a section cut from an old broken windsurfer mast and the AI mastfoot glued into the end, the AI roller furling drum glued on at the right height and a Kayak mast 'cup' fitted inside (all these parts were bought from Hobie off the parts catalogue). Works well.

If you wanted to you could even think about installing the AI mast 'cup' into your boat; then you would retain the standard features of the AI mast such as roller furling and availability of parts. It would depend on the design of your wooden boat but, if the AI mast cup can support the AI mast in a bendy plastic hull and cope with the stresses and strains the wind in the sail puts onto that hull (and bear in mind that being a trimaran, the hull has little ability to spill wind through leaning when the sail is over pressed), then I imagine that the same would be possible in a wooden boat with the application of a bit of thought an common sense. Bear in mind, though, that the AI mast cup in the AI is braced inside the boat to the AKA bars - you would need to stick your head inside an AI front hatch to see the set up - it is not particularly complex or 'engineered' (just a couple of more-or-less off-the-shelf turnbuckle supports) but it clearly does the job. All the parts are available from the parts catalogue.

I think that the AI sail is only 5.5 sqm though. For a 6.8 you might need to think about a different sail and/or even a different mast but I am sure you can work that out easy enough.

Incidentally, there's a second-hand but new sounding Hobie Brave sail that nobody seems to want available for sale here in NZ a the moment for NZ$200 - see
http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/boats-m ... 110621.htm
Might be a good deal - dunno what they cost in your part of the world nor what postage/duty might cost but it might be of interest.