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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Catamaran Front Beam Load Paths: Why We Replaced Aluminium with Carbon The original aluminium front beam on Paikea worked. It had done 45,000 miles. But understanding why we replaced it requires understanding what a front beam actually has to do — and the original arrangement was doing it in a way that had some significant
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Paikea’s First Sea Trial: Carbon Front Beam, New Rudders, and a Midnight Sewing Job The sea trial almost didn’t happen on schedule. When we’d left for France earlier in the build — when Shayne was stepping the Gunboat 68 rig — Anna had set the mainsail head webbing in an approximate position, the intention being
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From America’s Cup to Our Catamaran: Rescuing a Carbon Legend We’d been stuck in Valencia during the COVID lockdown when we came across a piece of sailing history that was about to be destroyed. Rig #12 from Team New Zealand’s 2000 America’s Cup campaign — later used by the French challenger in the 2007 Cup
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Designing a Stowable Anchor System for a Carbon Front Beam The challenge with a carbon longeron as an anchor platform is obvious the moment you think about it: anchor chain, stainless steel rollers, and a steel anchor bash around constantly, and carbon doesn’t like that. Every point where metal meets carbon needs protection, and that
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How to Install a Dyneema Trampoline on a Catamaran Most production catamarans come with polyester trampoline netting. It does the job until it doesn’t — UV degradation, stretch, and a surface that gets progressively less pleasant to walk on in rough conditions. What was required was a netting that was strong and sturdy enough to
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