length of spreaders

[ebb]

Decided years ago I wanted airfoil spreaders instead of broom handles.
Also the aluminum sockets and the four thru-holes for the 1/2" bolts were a royal mess.

So recently in cleaning up the mast, the sockets long gone, closed up the top 1/2" holes.
And more or less where the tube spreaders had been, cut in rather wide oblong horizontal slots for the bar that slides thru the mast that these particular airfoils slip ONTO.
A totally different method of spreader attachment - for sure.
And right below the eye shaped holes I left the orignal bolt holes that the lower tangs where strung on to. But

the original spreader sockets where put on really crooked, one side lower than the other. So I decided to incorporate a larger diameter compression tube that got the east and west holes to line up by drilling out the 1/2" holes with new 3/4" that are 1/4" lower on one side, with the other side 1/4" higher. Much betta line up now.
That's not important here, except that the mast now has a group of four rather large evacuations pretty close together in the middle of the mast.

Plus the new airfoils have beauty plates upon which the spreaders bear against to protect the mast - and they will be screwed or popriveted on thru 6 more holes EACH. ebb's wondering what he got hisself into? Thats 16 holes plus the two plugged ones, which are still holes as far as the mast knows. 18 holes in a dead mast's chest.

There's still the rub:
Had to check on the length of the old spreaders which have mysteriously disppeared. Going to the drawing on pg 146 in the Manual. which features the Ariel's sail plan, we can see that the spreaders hold the shroud out from the mast at exactly the width of the boat. If the boat is 8' beam, which it is, then each spreader is 48" long minus half the width of the mast. Mast and upper shrouds are precisely parallel from mast base to spreaders.

Then I measured the new airfoils. The particular extrusion is obsolete. In fact Buzz Ballenger recently found and sold me the last set of beauty plates that I'd missed getting when I bought the system.... That he obviously had been saving for me.
The new spreaders measured 36" long. WHOT the HELL? ! ! ! !

So I called up Ballenger Spars and asked Buzz if he knew what I was going to do?
....Brain calculating what custom spreaders might cost in 2012? Plus whatever a new bar extrusion was. Wasn't going back to sockets and tubes.
So Buzz on the other end of the line says,
"Let me do a little figuring. You need a 12degree angle," he said mysteriously....silence....
What 12 degree, I asked. "Angle of the shroud to the masthead," says he....silence....he working off original Ariel plans that he has on file...
...."No problem." What's no problem, I ask.... you mean I can use the shorter spreaders?
"Yup." OH!
No drama!
Thanks, Buzz!!!

So there you go.
My first thought is what that may do FOR the 100+ size jibs and genoas that litlgull will fly.
This bit of drama should be confirmed with an architect. Who?
So don't go out right away and shorten your spreaders.
But it's something to think about.
Right?