The Spar Tech Company, in Redmond, Washington, has a long history of involvement with the Star boat, a 22 foot keelboat with a very tall rig. In late 2002 I was asked to see if I could come up with a better external shape for the Star mast. Richard Gates at Spar Tech would be responsible for defining the internal shape of the mast to meet weight and bending requirements.
I had the best Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool to do the job, thanks to Mark Drela's MSES Euler code provided by David Lednicer of Analytical Methods Inc, Bellevue, WA. David Watt, a local Star boat sailor, took me sailing a few times on his Star and furnished guidance on the peculiarities of the Star.
The Boeing Aero Grid and Paneling System Development and Support Group provided access to the powerful AGPS surface geometry tool for use on my home computer. (It is amazing to have home access to a computer program that took several million dollars to develop, thanks to Steve Ray and Tom Dickens of Boeing.)
The article given below describes the design process used for the new Star mast. This file is in PDF format and may take a few minutes to download depending upon your Internet speed.
