Building Carbon Fibre Chainplates: Part Three — The Starboard Side The rudder project running through this same stretch of time wasn’t happening in isolation — there was a lot going on aboard Paikea at once, and this starboard chainplate rebuild was one of several things competing for attention in the same tight window. It’s worth […]
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When it comes to building or upgrading a cruising boat, the question of materials is never simple. Should everything be carbon fiber? Is fiberglass “good enough”? Recently, we sat down with Shane in the engine room to dive deep into the specifics of our rudder system, tiller arm, and torque tabs. The conversation covered everything
Carbon vs. Fiberglass – Building for Performance and Reliability Read More »
Making a Composite Rudder Part Two: Laminating, Fairing and Getting It on the Boat August 2023 There was a deadline on this one. Shayne had accepted a job as rigger for the French America’s Cup team and we needed to get to Barcelona. Five days to finish two rudder blades, get them installed, and be
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Making a Composite Rudder Part One: Shaping the Foam Blank April 2023 This footage starts mid-Atlantic. We’re three days without a port rudder, still four or five days out from land, watching the rudder angle readout and trying to keep it between two and five degrees in normal conditions. The breeze is light so we’ve
Rudder Evolution: Shaping the Ultimate Foil Read More »
Our Custom Mainsail Reefing System: How It All Works A lot of reefing complaints come down to the same root cause: an undersized system trying to do a job it was never built for. Small 24mm track with basic sliders jams under real load, sails get hard to hoist, reefing downwind becomes genuinely difficult —
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Engineering Paikea’s Rig: Adapting America’s Cup Technology for Cruising April 2023 Taking an IACC mast and making it work on a cruising catamaran isn’t a matter of cutting it to length and stepping it. Every system on the original rig was designed for a grand prix racing programme with a full crew, unlimited budget, and
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