Mistral equipe base extension

Question
QUESTION: Hi!  I've looked through a great deal of your Q+A's to see if my question has been addressed, but I haven't had any luck.  I recently bought a barely used Mistral Equipe (circa late 80's).  It has the rotating mast base that locks into the mast track (2 flat sides on the metal tendon).  The person I bought the board from also gave me a mast extension that does not fit to this base - the end of the extension has a threaded bolt rather than being open so that the base can slide and lock inside it.  Do you know of an extension that is available to fit on this base, or should I convert to a Chinook univeral type?  If I switch to the chinook, I lose the mast track on-the-fly adjustment of mast location, right?  Thanks in advance for your help - I am just getting into the sport and am very excited about getting out on this board.

John P

ANSWER: Hey John,

Your Mistral base should fit into any standard size mast extension except for Windsurfing Hawaii. You can find extensions at any online shop or your local shop. Also, if the top of your base doesn't look like it will work for a standard base, you can replace the top with a new part.

Chinooksailing.com has extensions and also parts to convert your base.

Your base is a rare piece so take good care of it. The lower part below the u-joint is very hard to replace but the u-joint and the top are readily available.

Take a look at your mast track where the base attaches. There should be two holes in the cart that travels forward and back for the on-the-fly adjustment. One hole fits your Mistral base pin, the other hole should be threaded. There is a good chance that the threaded bolt on the extension that you got will fit into this hole. Go easy with it when you try to thread it in. The stud on the extension should be metric as the hole on the mast track is definitely metric. All early boards were made in Europe and amazingly enough, the industry has continued to make all threaded mast bases with metric studs and nuts.

If for some reason you end up needing small parts for your Mistral, Windance.com and OceanAirSports.com both carry some older parts. OceanAir lists their parts online. You would need to email or call Windance to determine if they have what you are looking for as they don't list their parts but I've been in their shop a lot and know that they have a nice Mistral parts bin. If you do happen to lose the Mistral base, Windance has an aftermarket pin that will work on the older carts.

Hope this helps.
Keep on sailing,
Windlover

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks Windlover!  I have a few more questions, but I'm going to have to assemble my gear to figure out how it will all fit together.  I will try a new mast extension on the equipe base - the extension the previous owner provided me with is a mistral extension, but has no universal joint on it - is that what the threads fasten to?  The previous owner thought I could unfasten the top of the equipe base and fasten the threads of the extension to the rubber joint of the base.  I was wondering about different extensions because I have a rig from an older F2 comet whose mast extension does not fit on the base.  However, if I can find an extension that does work with the equipe base, then I can use the rest of the comet rig while I save up for a new rig.

Thanks again for your help - I really like reading through your posts.

John P

Answer
Hey John,

The rubber hourglass universal joints are all the same. A rubber hourglass with metric threaded inserts on both ends. You can add any type of mast base and connector pins to the u-joint. You can fit some types of extensions directly. This method would use a threaded stud into the u-joint and a nut/washer to hold the extension.

A few suggestions for adding or removing parts from a u-joint. When adding parts, be sure to use a small amount of Blue locktight on the threads, NOT RED. Blue can be removed, Red is almost permanent. If you use a nut/washer, use a nylock nut and a flat washer. Nylock nuts are the type with a nylon ring in the top of the nut that acts like a lock washer. It is good to use Blue locktight and always check the tightness when installing. Be sure to get most of the slack out of the connection but the extension or base should be able to rotate on the u-joint.

Hope this helps.
Keep on sailing,
Windlover