Paikea Refit Archives | Page 4 of 19

Engineering Composite Flush Hatches: Why We Started From Scratch

Engineering Composite Flush Hatches: Why We Started From Scratch Paikea’s original hatches were thirty-two years old, genuinely well-built, and still failing in exactly the way expensive equipment fails when it’s finally reached the end of what it was designed for. What was actually wrong with them These aren’t cheap hatches. They’re proper offshore-spec units with […]

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Building Lightweight Composite Shelves for a Catamaran Interior

Building Lightweight Composite Shelves for a Catamaran Interior On a boat, every millimetre of storage space is worth fighting for, and every kilogram you add to get it is worth thinking twice about. In this stage of Paikea’s interior refit, we tackled both problems at once: building a set of composite shelves into a bunk-end

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Advanced Resin Infusion: Avoiding Close-Outs and Racetracking (Members)

This content is for Youngbarnacles members. The technical library, forum, and downloads are available to members only. If you’re not a member yet, here’s what you get access to — 25+ years of grand prix composite and rigging knowledge documented in depth, one new members-only video every month, and a technical forum where people building

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October 2025 Update

October 2025 Update Read More »

Finishing the Stanchion Sockets: Load Paths, Peel Ply, and the Vacuum Bagging Process

Finishing the Stanchion Sockets: Load Paths, Peel Ply, and the Vacuum Bagging Process The last of the starboard side stanchion sockets went in during a genuinely hot stretch — air temperature around 32°C, laminating inside the hull with a portable air conditioner running flat out just to make the space workable. Not the most comfortable

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Engineering Lighter, Smarter: Why We’re Replacing Paikea’s Wooden Doors with Composites

Composite vs. Wooden Doors: Why Fit-for-Purpose Beats “Best” Material There’s a persistent myth in boatbuilding that materials rank on a single ladder — Kevlar above carbon, carbon above wood, fibreglass somewhere in between — as though one material is simply better than another in every situation. It isn’t true, and Paikea’s doors are a genuinely

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