Refined Geometry
The angles of the mast have been refined to make turning feel responsive and natural. A subtle rake reduces the change in yaw stability at different ride-heights, increasing the size of the sweet spot in the water column while a neutral base plate provides the ideal balance of performance attributes. The neutral base also makes it easy to add a 1 degree “board nose up” base plate shim for improved carving, high speed control, and touch down performance in big waves/high wind or conversely a 1 degree “board nose down” shim for better light wind performance or pumping out of the hole in very small surf.
Beauty is Not Only Skin Deep
Collaboration with ICE and NoLimitz allowed us to optimize every variable of our mast to provide you with unparalleled performance. Even the application of graphics and finishing have been refined to reduce their impact on boundary layer flow. The Stiffy’s physical properties are a result of its unique internal structure and use of 100% aerospace grade carbon. The high modulus, uni-directional, pre-preg materials are laid out in a precise pattern designed to maximize torsional and bending stiffness while keeping the mast impossibly strong, light, and thin.
The core of the foot is fabricated with Hexcel's carbon SMC in its own mold before being wrapped within the mast layup and placed in the next tool. This creates a solid pre-preg carbon foot and accommodates the placement of brass inserts. The brass provides a low friction bearing surface for the stainless steel hardware that will not degrade in salt water. This results in a consistent, locked connection to the fuselage. Like all Omen equipment our mast is designed to last, in the event of thread damage the brass inserts are simple to replace.
Slim Baseplate
After testing every base plate design we could get our hands on, the low profile NoLimitz design proved superior. Although a bulky baseplate may not affect a foils performance when riding, significant parasitic drag is created when paddling into waves or working to get up on foil under wing power.
The anisotropic strength of 6061 aluminum, along with ICE’s state of the art finite element analysis software and testing equipment, enables our baseplate to be as thin as possible. Drag has been reduced to the bare minimum without compromising reliability.