Paikea Refit

Modifying our vintage Catana42 into a modern performance cruiser

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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Widening Structural Doorways Beside a Chainplate — and a Watertight Forward Hatch

Widening Structural Doorways Beside a Chainplate — and a Watertight Forward Hatch Two genuinely different projects came together this week: a new watertight hatch for the bow, and a structural modification most people shouldn’t attempt without a proper engineering background — widening doorways immediately next to a chainplate-bearing bulkhead. A Watertight Forward Hatch, Built Like

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Building Carbon Stanchion Sockets

Building Carbon Stanchion Sockets Stanchion sockets aren’t the kind of thing anyone gets excited about — until you’ve spent years kicking your toes on stainless steel bases bolted proud of the deck, catching lines on them, watching them collect salt and grime in every corner. The fix on Paikea was to move away from that

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composite stancion sockets

Stanchion Socket Installation Details & The Material Science Behind Pultruded Spigots

  Stanchion Socket Installation Details & The Material Science Behind Pultruded Spigots A few questions came in after the first stanchion socket video that deserved proper answers rather than a quick comment reply — how the drains actually perform in practice, whether the stanchions need mechanical securing, and the material science behind why a pultruded

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