Hi romenfree OK so you can tip these babies I suppose I have come close before, Regards the float idea at the top of the mast I have seen that option on Cats which can have the same problem , Years ago on my Cat, to avoid the total upside down scenario I took the top cap off my mast and filled the mast tube with expander foam , I imagine you could do the same with the Island Mast utilizing the spray cans of expander foam readily available nowadays, be careful ,I would not try to fill the entire mast ,and once you have sprayed enough in ? get the cap back on promptly to direct the flow downwards , it can get messy if too much pressure builds from the expansion of an over fill ,but also realize filling from the top once the first injection sets you will not be able to fill further down except from the other end , I doubt if this will cause any extra weight problem .What this did was it gave me a mast that floated and importantly did not fill with water when submerged. Good luck Lancer .PS I am about to enter a new post regards my Mast breakage
romenfree wrote:
:shock: First time I ever even came close was nothing like what happened to me, my mate, his wife and 5 year old daughter when I took them for a sail today.
I had to reassure my mates wife that these did not tip like the cat we had just seen tip before we ventured out.
I was about to tack for the return leg back to shore when I warned of the sail's tendency to flap when into the wind then half way around without warning we were hit by a large gust and over it went, I watched as the down wind ama disappeared under the water throwing all of us off and into the water. It was not front to back it was a side ways capsize, it was surreal!
First thing was a head count and all of us were floating, I instructed my mate to pull the inflation cord on the PDF his wife was wearing and I did the same with mine. At this point a couple of guys on a wave runner came to see if we needed help and they quickly took all three of my passengers ashore.
I had about 5 minutes to contemplate how to get the TI upright and I soon realised it was the mast digging into the sand on the bottom that was stopping both me and my TI being sucked out to sea with the outgoing tide.
I managed to unclip the tramps and swing the amas in and free the furling and sail ropes from their cleats.
Upon their return we managed to right the TI twice but both times it continued to travel right over again and seemed to like being upside down this was due to the sail being still in place so with two of the guys counter balancing we managed to get the sail off the bottom long enough for me to unclip it and pull it free, really lucky they float!
The sail surfaced and was quickly picked up by a second wave runner that had now joined the operation. This made it easy to wright the craft and we then got a tow back to shore to access any damage.
Nothing broken except my ego. reassembled it and then sailed back up the channel to the boat ramp.
Three things I have learned, TI's can be capsized!, inflatable PDF's are terrible when you are trying to manoeuvre around stuff in the water, last but probably most important I will have to install a float to the top of my sail so it will not end up completely upside down if I am to ever go over again.