Selden Masts Ltd. open new manufacturing facility
by Seldén Masts 15 Dec 2004 08:50 GMT
Double Olympic Medallist Shirley Robertson formally opens the new Seldén Masts Ltd. manufacturing facility © Rick Perkins
Double Olympic Medallist Shirley Robertson formally opened the new Seldén Masts Ltd. manufacturing facility today
"Today formally marks the start of a new era for Seldén Masts Ltd in the UK, the £4 million pound investment in this new manufacturing facility will enable us to continue to grow our market leadership position through the design, development and prompt delivery of race winning spars " said Zeb Elliott, Managing Director of Seldén Masts Ltd.
Seldén Masts Ltd was established in the UK through the acquisition of Kemp Spars in 1984 and then Proctor Masts in 1997. The operations had been based at the Duncan Road site for 40 years, however, in recent years Seldén Masts increased market share and the development of the carbon spar capability has put increasing strain on the factory which has lead to the development of this new facility.
"We have seen increased demand for Seldén spars from our customer base and the increased capacity at the new factory will allow us to better serve our customers" said Andy Postle, MD of Allspars – Specialist Yacht Riggers.
The new 50,000 sq. ft purpose built facility has allowed Seldén Masts Ltd to make further investment in their carbon spar production including the extension of the filament-winding machine and the installation of a 20 meter auto-clave. Seldén Masts can now produce CNC controlled, fully optimised single piece carbon spars up to 20m in length to better address the needs of the IRC and IMS yacht market. The investments will also allow Seldén to increase the production volume of dinghy carbon spars and spinnaker poles.
Ian "Chips" Howarth, Sales Director at Seldén Masts Ltd said "Whilst the demand for our aluminium spars continues to grow the demand for carbon spars is even greater as sailors, designers and classes look to improve the performance and handling of their craft. The investment in the carbon product will allow us to continue to lead in that market and to make further market share gains in the yacht market now we are able to make single piece 20m masts"
The trend to carbon spars is evident from the selection of carbon spars for many new IRC and IMS rated yachts and also on eye-opening one-offs like Full Pelt (using a Seldén Mast in 2004). Also, in the dinghy market new classes such as the Musto Skiff and RS800 have selected Seldén carbon masts. In addition, more traditional dinghy classes such as the FD have now adopted carbon spars.
Further investment in the production of performance aluminium dinghy spars has also been made through the purchase of a plasma cutting machine that will allow Seldén to achieve an even more accurate taper ensuring that every mast is 100% true to the designers bend characteristics.
Ian Pinnell of Pinnell and Bax, a major Seldén dinghy mast dealer, said "We spend a lot of time developing tuning guides for the classes we support and to be able to reproduce the same rig tune on every customer's boat is critical. This is why we standardise on Seldén spars for the Pinnell and Bax Fireball, Flying Fifteen, 420, 505 and Phantom"
Seldén Masts Ltd are also taking this opportunity to consolidate the brands. Keelboat and dinghy spars have been shipped under the joint Seldén/Proctor brand name, from now on all the products will be branded as Seldén. To mark this change Seldén are also announcing today the TEAM Seldén programme, a works team carrying the Seldén brand name.
In summary, today is a landmark for Seldén Masts Ltd, but also represents the start of a new era in the design development and manufacture of carbon and aluminium masts for the UK and overseas markets.
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