joeballow said..TooMuchEpoxy said..
Maybe if they made an aluminum 650 but the carbon is trash in my experience aluminum for life!
I've seen you post that a few times, you think the carbon is too flexible right? I haven't experience that but I am probably too light and not good enough for it to be a problem. Did you ever measure how much the carbon one deflects v an aluminum one of the same size?
They claim equal strength and stiffness at a lower weight which you obviously don't agree with. I don't care all that much about the weight but I'd have to really prefer the aluminum one for it to be worth dealing with in a salt water environment. Brings back too many bad memories of aluminum rigs in dinghies disintegrating around the stainless fasteners. No steel or aluminum in my setup and I don't have to worry about it!
Yeah, stiffness is my gripe. I just assembled them side by side and did the wiggle test in the car park and it was significant.
also I've cracked a lot of carbon fuses with a socket style connection. It's just a big weak point for carbon. I think if you want a good carbon fuse you have to go with the AFS/kt style mast/fuse connection. Also, while carbon in an ideal scenario is stiffer, the fuse isnt that scenario. It takes a little bit of stretch before those fibers are really engage.
As far as corrosion goes, the secret with electrolytic corrosion is, it's going to happen, but you get to decide where it happens. If there's nowhere for the corrosion to go it'll latch on in a little scratch in a high wear area, like the mast connection, and cause a lot of damage. If you have a less structural area, like opposite the stab, that that paint is missing from(in my case from bumping the bottom) the corrosion will happen there instead of a more critical area.
