Composites, Boat Building & Performance Sailing
Straight talk from people who’ve spent their careers doing it.
There’s no shortage of boat content on the internet. Most of it is lifestyle. Some of it is genuinely wrong — and when it comes to composites or offshore seamanship, wrong information can get people into serious trouble.
Youngbarnacles exists because we got tired of watching that happen. We’re Shayne and Anna — between us, over 50 years of professional experience across composite engineering, carbon fibre construction, foil design, rigging, sailmaking, and offshore racing at the highest levels of the sport. This is the technical resource that doesn’t exist anywhere else. Real knowledge, applied to a real project, shared honestly.
The Philosophy
We don’t buy new when the best materials in the world are being thrown away.
Paikea — our 42ft Catana catamaran — is being rebuilt using salvaged grand prix carbon and recycled race sails from some of the most advanced sailing campaigns ever run. Her rotating wing mast is Rig #12 from Team New Zealand’s 2000 America’s Cup campaign, rescued from a Valencia scrapyard. Her front beam and longeron are fabricated from salvaged America’s Cup mast sections. Her bulkheads incorporate structural components from the Alinghi 5 AC catamaran. Her sails are recut from a Mini Maxi 72, RC44s, a Carkeek 47, and an America’s Cup spinnaker staysail. Her steering wheels are modified America’s Cup trim tab wheels.
This isn’t nostalgia. It’s the most rational approach to performance cruising we know: source the best materials ever made, apply professional knowledge to adapt them, and end up with a boat that outperforms anything you could buy new at the same budget. Every decision is documented, explained, and backed by professional reasoning.
Who We Are
Shayne trained as a diesel fitter but boats were always where his head was. He went on to build carbon fibre masts at Southern Spars, design composite battens at C-Tech, and run the R&D lab at High Modulus — now part of Gurit. He’s worked on two Volvo Ocean Race campaigns, an America’s Cup Challenger campaign, commissioned the first four Gunboat 68 rigs, and designed the rudder that helped Liz Wardley break the solo Atlantic rowing record by 15 days.
Anna left a career at PwC after helping Shayne build his first boat and never looked back. She retrained as a sailmaker with NorthSails NZ — where her work included America’s Cup sails, J Class sails, and multiple Volvo Ocean Race campaigns — and has since worked across rigging, sail repair, offshore deliveries, and extended cruising passages on large performance multihulls including the Gunboat catamarans.
Youngbarnacles is where we share what 50 years of combined professional experience actually looks like in practice.
How It Works
Watch free on YouTube
Follow Paikea’s transformation and learn alongside us. Every video has a supporting blog post with references and further detail. No algorithm padding, no lifestyle filler.
Explore free resources
A curated library of professional references, technical guides, Paikea’s complete systems breakdown, and sailing resources we actually use. Genuinely useful, no sign-up required.
Join the membership
Behind the scenes technical footage, deep dive series on composites, rigging, foil design, and sailmaking, downloadable 3D print files, and a forum where Shayne answers technical questions directly. $20/month or $180/year.
What’s Inside the Membership
The YouTube videos show you what we did. The membership shows you why — and inspire how you apply the same philosophy to your own boat.
Inside you’ll find a professional composites curriculum covering resin selection, infusion technique, failure analysis, and weight optimisation — documented from Shayne’s 25+ years of hands-on composite work. Build series on composite rudders, carbon chainplates, and structural beams fabricated from salvaged America’s Cup carbon. The complete unfiltered build diary for our Team New Zealand mast conversion. A technical deep dive into Gunboat 68 deck hardware and load management. Our mast jack series — the most precise tuning tool in a rigger’s arsenal, rarely documented outside professional circles. Anna’s professional sailmaking knowledge applied to Paikea’s grand prix sail inventory. Behind the scenes project footage, downloadable 3D print files for parts we’ve designed and built ourselves, and a technical forum where serious questions get serious answers.
$20/month or $180/year. No fluff, no algorithm chasing.
Latest from the Channel
- Portside Upgrades and Our Epic Diesel Tank Lid
Fuel Tanks and our Epic Fuel Tank Lids The old stainless steel diesel tanks are out. New plastic ones are going in. Simple, right? Not really… We sourced stock tanks that were close to the right size, but nothing fit without modification. The spin-off lid that came with the tank? Useless. Every… Read more: Portside Upgrades and Our Epic Diesel Tank Lid
Free Resources
Not ready to join? Our free resources library is genuinely useful on its own. The complete Paikea systems breakdown documents every piece of equipment we run — navigation, power, sails, deck hardware, design software — with honest recommendations and links to detailed blog posts. Alongside that you’ll find curated composite engineering papers, offshore regulations, sailing technique guides, and our daggerboard placement video series. All free, no sign-up required.
SYAS Performance
Our professional work continues through SYAS Performance — our marine design and engineering consultancy specialising in hydrofoil and appendage design, composite engineering, and technical oversight for high performance vessels. Same expertise, applied at the professional end.