The perfect choice

Choosing to have a carbon mast rather than an aluminum mast is an important decision.

Choosing the appropriate fabrication method and the type of carbon is also essential. Each technique brings different performances to your mast, with regards to responsiveness, lightness and aesthetics.

For this, LORIMA makes use of its skills to help you choose the best for your sailing programme.

Since it was created, LORIMA uses an original production technique, unique for very large masts and much more performant on various points:

• LORIMA uses pre impregnated fabrics :
  These kinds of fabrics together with the lamination technique enable us to know, prior to fabrication, the weight of the tube as close as 3%. There is no resin excess in the fabrics, to obtain a weight gain.
  
  
• LORIMA uses to half hulls female tools and not male mandrels (on which fabrics are rolled). Our technology allows a 15% weight gain compared with a filament winding method.
  
  
• The use of the moulds enables to align the carbon fabrics at 0° in the unique effort direction (representing 70% of the fabrics making a mast). The optimization of the fabrics directions leads to a weight gain and to a high performance mast.
  
  
• The first layers of fabrics being laminated are the external layers of the mast which will remain apparent after coming out of the mould. We can therefore obtain a very smooth and clean finish of the mast after coming out of the mould, requiring no additional weight due to additional fairing, paint or resin. Yet another guarantee for weight gain, performance and… aesthetics.
  
  
• After that are fitted all reinforcements (eg. Attachments, spreaders) on the inside of fabrics laminated prior. Therefore no attachments will show on the outside of the mould after coming out of the mould, for an aerodynamics and performance gain.

Our standard Quality Controls :

• To maintain the chemical qualities of pre preg carbon fabrics, storage is made in a cool room at -18° C.
• We record all carbon batches numbers and compliance certificates.
• Temperature and hygrometry stability is controlled and monitored in the workshops.
• A quality control is carried out at each stage of the fabrication of the mast:
  • All stages of the curing process of the mast are electronically recorded
  • After the tube comes out of the mould, an acceptance report is done with a weight control, a centre of gravity, and a bending test to verity inertias.
  • All parts are controlled prior to fitting (except for electronics).
  • An ultra-sound inspection can be done in our workshops.

All the research and development work we have done on " High level racing " masts allows us to reach a cutting edge technology and to use it for both racing and cruising boats. Architects and Project Managers also trust us for our masts quality and dependability. Speed, but also safety and reliability can go together…