folding masts?

[skyhawk]

stumbled across this video of a folding mast, in my youtube suggestions

How many typical production cruising yachts have a folding mast set-up?

Seems like it would be great for situations like folks wanting to cruise canals in Europe.....

clearly weak points and potential failure points, but such a thing can be properly engineered and plenty strong..... and there's something nice to me, about the simplicity in his set-up....

https://youtu.be/HjGalz501Kc

[DefinitelyMe]

Having watched that I have a serious case of boat envy! What a gorgeously intuitive and utilitarian design. Thanks for posting.

[tkeithlu]

Nice rig. He is very adept.

His rig differs from the usual pivoting mast in having a full splice rather than a simple hinge. That gives the mast some cantilever strength. Most masts are too light to benefit from that - they depend completely on shrouds to keep them upright, and collapse if the standing rigging fails with any load (sails up) on the mast. Whether his mast is heavier is not clear. If it is, that's additional weight aloft, a disadvantage. Masts that are steped below deck may have some cantilever strength, while those stepped on deck do not.

So, you can achieve a folding mast without the splice. The few boats with them do that. My radar/antenna mast does that. Done the usual way, the mast is not heavier aloft and not as expensive to achieve. My guess is that folding masts are not very popular because they add cost and require retuning at the shackles if that is important, for an option that relatively few owners want.