Part 2 of our Atlantic journey. We are mid Atlantic on our modified Crowther catamaran. The ride so far has been fast and sometimes a bit fruity. We discover that the mainsail batten pockets are loading up too much as we placed them too close to the reefing points and have to repair with some […]
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The first in our Atlantic Ocean crossing series. A light airs start from Las Palmas following the Moroccan coastline proved interesting when we were approached by a Moroccan patrol boat. We suspect they were looking for smugglers (drugs/people) as they asked us to report to them if we saw any suspicious activity. As we are
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Discovering Chainplate Movement: Bolt Failure and Bulkhead Rot Some problems on a boat announce themselves. Others hide in plain sight for years, waiting for the right conditions to become visible. This one falls firmly into the second category — and it only came to light because of an unrelated job Shayne had done not long
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Arriving in the Canary Islands after a great sail down from Cadiz. The next instalment in our video diary as we prepare to take our modified Catana42s across the Atlantic Ocean. Our carbon longeron and front beam are fantastic but Shayne is worried about chafing on the navigation lights we have installed inside the bow
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The Carbon Longeron: How a Recycled America’s Cup Mast Changed Everything The longeron is the big black pole that runs down the middle of the trampoline. It’s probably the single most transformative thing we’ve done to Paikea, and we somehow managed to not really talk about it properly until now. Before it went in, there
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Mainsheet Systems Compared: Why Paikea’s A-Frame Doesn’t Hold Up In the Gunboat 68 mainsheet post, the traveller system handled twist and power as two clean, independent controls. Paikea runs something very different — a double-ended A-frame system, common on older-style French catamarans, with no traveller at all. Two sheets, one to a winch on each
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