Intro
To succeed in racing, yachts must achieve maximum performance. The forces acting upon a yacht’s mast can give an indication of how efficiently the sail performs.
The Solution
A carbon fibre free-standing yacht mast had four sets of strain gauges fitted fore, aft, port and starboard. Engineers buried four DSC digital load cell conditioning cards in the mast. A single four core cable brought back information to a graphical display mounted in the cockpit of the yacht. The engineers calibrated the gauges by applying known forces in all four directions. They added alarm levels to give an audible warning from the display unit should the mast become over strained.
The benefits of the DSC meant that a single four-core cable could be brought from the mast to the cockpit. This cable was more suitable than the sensitive strain gauge wires. Additionally, engineers utilised the small size of the DSC’s and buried them inside the carbon fibre structure of the mast.
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