The construction and delivery of a record-breaking carbon mast at Lorima, a spar maker located in Brittany, France, was big news for the town of Lorient.

Lorima, a 10-year-old company that specializes in carbon composite masts and spars, is located in a former submarine facility, which played a key role during World War II. The bomb-resistant facility built by the Germans to conceal their U-boats during the war, closed as a French Navy facility in the early 1990s. It is now home to various businesses, including the company that was contracted to build the main mast of the world’s largest catamaran.

About 7,000 hours of work went into the construction of the 54-meter, 5.8-ton mast, which was ready in about two years time. When time came to deliver the mast to the Pendennis shipyard, in the UK, where the catamaran was nearing completion, the parties involved considered lifting the mast with a helicopter. This option was abandoned in favor of more traditional and less costly means of transportation. After carefully maneuvering the mast out of the facility where it was stored, an operation that took a couple of hours, according to the hometown newspaper, a transporter carefully placed the mast onto a truck bound for the Port of St. Nazaire where it was transferred onto a barge bound for Falmouth, England.

Lorima specializes in carbon masts, which are lighter than their aluminum counterparts (about 30 to 50 percent) and highly resistant to stresses. For this reason, the company also builds and delivers masts and spars for high-performance sailing mono- and multihulls for both the cruising and racing industry.

For more information, visit lorima-carbon-mast.com