Making a Composite Rudder Part One: Shaping the Foam Blank This footage starts mid-Atlantic. We’re three days without a port rudder, still four or five days out from land, watching the rudder angle readout and trying to keep it between two and five degrees in normal conditions. The breeze is light so we’ve got the
Rudder Evolution: Shaping the Ultimate Foil Read More »
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that losing a rudder mid-Atlantic and building a replacement at anchor in the Caribbean was not the plan. But it did give Shayne something invaluable: a reason to design the right rudders for Paikea from scratch, with real data to work from. This post walks through the design
Paikea’s New Rudder Design: How We Did It and Why Read More »
Rudder Hunt: Sailing a One-Rudder Catamaran Around Antigua October 2022 We’d been in Antigua for two months on one rudder. The hull inspection in St Lucia had confirmed what we suspected — the port stock was gone and wasn’t coming back. We needed a replacement blade, and we needed it before we could think about
The Pirate’s Rudder Hunt: Sailing a Damaged Catamaran in Antigua Read More »
Antigua Downwind Blast: Racing the Clock and Losing a Spinnaker Some passages get planned weeks in advance. This one got planned around a party invitation and a six-hour weather window — get from Green Island, on the easternmost tip of Antigua, all the way around to Jolly Harbour on the western side, with enough time
Antigua Downwind Blast: Racing the Clock and Losing a Spinnaker Read More »
Did Losing a Rudder Damage our Hulls? We’d just crossed the Atlantic on one rudder. We knew what had happened — the port stock had failed mid-ocean, the blade had torn away, and we’d sailed Paikea nearly 800 nautical miles to the Canaries and then on to the Caribbean to sort it out. What we
St Lucia and Rudder Damage Analysis Read More »
Atlantic Crossing Debrief: 18 Days, 2,956 Miles, and a Lost Rudder We’re in St Lucia. The crossing is done. Time to go through what actually happened — the good, the bad, and the parts we’re still thinking about. This is the full debrief on our 2,700 nautical mile passage from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria to
Atlantic Crossing Debrief: 18 Days, 2,956 Miles, and a Lost Rudder Read More »
