The pointy ends on this Slingshot ghost whisper carbon mast threaten to poke a hole in the board when wiggling in and out of the box.
I could, but should I, chop the points off. Make round and blunt to prevent such injury?

It looks very sleek fitted. But is it needed?

First few tries foiling, and it got me to a new place, glass out city in the middle of the bay Freaky flying fin!

I would chop it but undercut ever so slightly so it enables it to rock back n forth and not damage the board
then put a bit of foam on it like weed fins have, so the gap is filled and the undercut won't allow it to catch weed

Get a longer bolt to start pulling it in until the shorter bolt reaches and to take it out put the longer bolt back in and tap the head to push the fin out?
bit of a pain in the arse but would solve the problem.

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Ben1973 said..
Get a longer bolt to start pulling it in until the shorter bolt reaches and to take it out put the longer bolt back in and tap the head to push the fin out?
bit of a pain in the arse but would solve the problem.

Like Ben said plus
sand the tuttle head so it is not a hard interference fit
make a soft drift that sits on both bolts so you can tap in the middle to avoid the "rocking" that will damage the board

Welcome to foiling, you are progressing quickly !

Sanding the head not great- then the bolts allow that big flange to overload the bottom laminate

I would slide a thin metal plate under the beak when removing the mast.

Some good ideas here. Thanks.
No one has said what it does yet though, so I'm tending to the 'chop chop - delete the beak' method.

Use long enough bolts you can back them out and give them a smack with a soft hammer. Also the Tuttle head shouldn't be that tight.

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MobZ said..
Some good ideas here. Thanks.
No one has said what it does yet though, so I'm tending to the 'chop chop - delete the beak' method.

It was an evolutionary dead end. There are zero foils doing anything similar currently. There are a few masts with a touch of protrusion because of the width of the foil near the top (they tend to be thinned out below, though) but nothing close to this. Being a freeride mast, this has pretty much nil benefit. I guess its purpose was creating a plate for the board to sit on and making it look cool and hydrodynamic. Back in the day when most of us were still using non-foil boards, plates were much more important to spread the load of the foil from just sitting in a box that was intended to hold just a 45-60cm fin.

I have zero scientific evidence to back this up but whacking on those screws and barrel nuts that already see a ton of load on them - especially the back - seems a bit cavalier.

Another vote for welcome to foiling!

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Grantmac said..
Use long enough bolts you can back them out and give them a smack with a soft hammer. Also the Tuttle head shouldn't be that tight.

It should be. It should require quite some muscle and rocking and levering to get a tuttle out after use.
Its an interference fit.
If that is not the case, you are going to load bolts way too much

Yes as Paducah says the beak was designed to spread the load on non foil ready boards. The Slingshot foil in question does not have a full deep tuttle mount it is a fair bit shallower. I would not be removing the beak, just be super careful easing the foil in and out. This foil was mine for many years, I can still see a slight impression on the bottom of my board from the beak. Happy memories of my first decent foil.

Here is some history of the foil
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Foiling/Can-you-use-an-old-slalom-board-for-foiling---Or-How-to-find-a-lost-foil-

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Mark _australia said..

Grantmac said..
Use long enough bolts you can back them out and give them a smack with a soft hammer. Also the Tuttle head shouldn't be that tight.

It should be. It should require quite some muscle and rocking and levering to get a tuttle out after use.
Its an interference fit.
If that is not the case, you are going to load bolts way too much

Agree with this, when I had a Tuttle box Foilx125 with Sabfoil Kraken the adapter just flopped into the box.
Didn't trust that 2 M6 bolts would withstand an impact so attached a dyneema line around Tuttle head and rear strap.as insurance. Was never required but....

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tbwonder said..
This foil was mine for many years, I can still see a slight impression on the bottom of my board from the beak. Happy memories of my first decent foil.

Here is some history of the foil
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Foiling/Can-you-use-an-old-slalom-board-for-foiling---Or-How-to-find-a-lost-foil-

Oh yes i forgot that that story was this foil, the resurrected ghost! It's magic. Going very well Andrew!
Woops, sorry you saw that i'm considering hacking your old beloved foil I've not had time yet as i've been sailing it in any fart of wind.

It fits super snug into the JP SLW 165.

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Mark _australia said..

Grantmac said..
Use long enough bolts you can back them out and give them a smack with a soft hammer. Also the Tuttle head shouldn't be that tight.

It should be. It should require quite some muscle and rocking and levering to get a tuttle out after use.
Its an interference fit.
If that is not the case, you are going to load bolts way too much

Not when you correctly shim the foil box top. Which also lets it rock out easier.

I have this mast and I just take extra effort to pull it more than rock it out. Although I did sand in places so it was easier to pull out. To me it looks to good to cut