Mast Matters

Slalom racers are obsessive about every part of their equipment setup, so when it comes to masts, what are the secrets of the pros? We lift the lid on the mysterious world of slalom masts as the pros reveal what lengths they go to in finding, testing and preserving their very best ones!

- Ross Williams, Arnon Dagan, Kurosh Kiani, John Skye, Marco Lang, Matteo Iachino & Andrea Cucchi.

JOHN SKYE

I think the main secret is testing, testing and more testing. I think most racers will have around 4 or 5 masts all the same size, the top guys maybe a lot more. They then test them all and find the best number 1 mast, which becomes a contest mast and they leave only for competition. Then number 2 probably becomes a reserve contest mast, whilst number 3 maybe becomes their training mast, and the others get sold on. The mast is really critical, so many guys will have specific masts for different conditions, if it is flat or choppy for example. Finian Maynard told me that when he finds a good mast, he keeps it forever… I imagine his garage is pretty full!

For the average guy, even national racer, if you have the recommended mast inside the sail it will be fine. You will easily be getting 99.9% of the performance from the sail. When you get to World Cup level however, everyone is so fast that you need to look for every 0.1 kt improvement. Then the differences between two supposedly equal masts is important and finding a good one can make all the difference. As I said at World Cup level every 0.1 kt is super critical. I think most people approach their gear and testing in this way. If they can find 5 things that can add 0.1 kt to their speed, suddenly they are going 0.5 kts quicker, which is substantial. With boards and sails all stock production off the shelf gear, the main areas that riders can tune are masts and fins. There are always tolerances in the masts, just like everything. Our tolerances on the masts at RRD is around 0.5%, which is tiny, but that means that you have the possibility to have 1% difference between two masts. Plus if you consider that there can be a tolerance in the top, and the bottom and the IMCS, it means the masts can feel quite different. As I said for the average consumer these tolerances are probably not noticeable, but at World Cup level it can add up to that all important 0.1 kt.