Fast in Light Airs: Caribbean to the Azores Some passages start with drama. This one started with a countdown, a somewhat vague sense of “not the Caribbean,” and a weather picture that was changing daily enough that the plan was simply to leave and see what showed up. Saturday, June 3rd, departure finally locked in, […]
Fast in Light Airs: Caribbean to the Azores Read More »
This week we take a detailed look at how we service the winches on Paikea. Winches should be serviced regularly on every yacht. As a general rule of thumb you should service your winches every 1000 nautical miles. Ours were well overdue for a bit of TLC in this episode. Shayne had used a new
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Why We Had to Fix Our Mast Rake — and What Happens When You Get It Wrong Two years ago we replaced Paikea’s front beam with a custom carbon one. The new beam was angled upwards to lift the trampoline higher — better clearance, better performance. What we didn’t fully account for was that raising
Correcting Mast Rake: Why Rig Geometry is Critical for Boat Balance Read More »
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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