Best Possible Design

Your mast is optimised and built using the world’s best technology. No compromises, no comparison.

World Class Design

Our rigs have been chosen by the pinnacle of yacht racing teams. We have been chosen as the mast builder for 15 World Superyacht of the Year winners, 46 Volvo Ocean Race teams and many America’s Cup challengers.

Carbon fibre is a supremely versatile material, but to get the most from it, expert design is required. Our design process emphasises ultimate performance and weight reduction at every stage. Our designers make use of the world’s most advanced carbon design technology to design a mast that is lighter, faster and more reliable than any other on earth.

Membrain Design Software

membrain design software - southern spars

Our designers work closely with your sail makers. Southern Spars makes use of North Sails’ proprietary sail-design software, MemBrain, which allows them to work with real sail shapes during rig design. The software integrates with our own mast design software, RigCalc.

So, when we design a mast, we have the actual loads and forces generated by the sails and how they deform throughout the wind range, simulating every possible load case.

Using this data, we can specifically tailor a mast so that it works in concert with the sails, to keep them performing at their maximum in all situations.

Thin Ply Design Freedom

thin ply technology - southern spars

Using many layers of extremely thin carbon fibre – down to 30 microns thick – gives our designers the benefit of working with extremely high design resolution.

This means that they can be extremely accurate with the amount of fibre that is placed at any point in the mast. They can add or remove fibre in the smallest increments – so a mast is only as heavy as it needs to be. It allows our designers to optimise weight and create a very specific bend profile for each mast.

Combining this with the data from MemBrain allows us to design masts that are completely customized to the sail plan for any yacht.

Fine Element Analysis

fine element analysis - southern spars

Southern Spars undertakes Finite Element Analysis on every component that we build. This is an in-depth analysis of the way in which that component will behave in the real world when put under load.

It allows us to be sure of whether a component will fail, wear out or behave the way it was designed.

We have a continuous feedback loop whereby we test each component after it is built, to verify our FEA process, so that each mast benefits from the experience gained from every one that has gone before it.

Southern Spars Design Process