thanks for your help THX.
I ended up just doing the planar mapping from the y-direction and just manually moving the UV sections one by one. I got it to look descent in the end as far as following the map but I'm getting stretched texturing on the side views instead of the all-round smooth from cylindrical mapping.





I really thought there was an easier and much quicker way of letting the clyindrical UV tube go along the path but maybe not. thanks again though,

Dan