Masts for sailing cargo ships from France

For a cargo or passenger ship to sail, big masts are needed. And big masts require big factories. In Lanester, in the department of Morbihan, the Solidsail Mast Factory was recently opened.

In August 2025, Solidsail Mast Factory delivered its first three giant masts. There are now seven in the order book and the company plans to make many more. The 4,000m² factory is calculated to build 12 to 15 masts a year. Just over one per month.

“At the moment, orders still have to come in to keep the factory running,” explains managing director Nicolas Abiven. But he is confident. Shipping must and will become low-carbon, and the Lanester plant is currently the only one in the world capable of producing masts 55 or 60 metres high.

Masts in which a human can walk

The masts for these ships are made of carbon. For the sake of weight and price, every effort is made to keep the mass and amount of material to a minimum. The carbon layers are applied one at a time.

“Here we have applied a first layer of fabric,” says Nicolas Abiven, “which is six-tenths thick. When finished, the mast will be 15 mm thick at its thinnest point and 180 mm thick at its thickest point. It is one of the largest carbon components in the world,” he says proudly. In the end, a 55-metre mast still weighs about 10 tonnes.

Today, draping is still done by hand, but soon this task will be taken over by a robot. The half-shells are then baked in ovens at 100 degrees for 24 hours. Reinforcements are then inserted into the mast.

A partnership of six companies

The company was founded in 2023 to meet this new demand from the maritime sector. Six companies, Avel Robotic, CDK Technologies, Chantiers de l’Atlantique, Lorima, Multiplast and SNE-SMM, joined forces to get this €18 million project off the ground. The company employs about 30 people on a permanent basis.

Sailboats and therefore masts can significantly reduce fuel consumption and thus the carbon footprint of ships. “The sector therefore has a future,” Nicolas Abiven stresses. He is convinced that the sail propulsion market could soon account for 10% of the market.

Source: Franceinfo.
Image: SMAF

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