Working with Composites
Composite materials — carbon fibre, fibreglass, epoxy resin, vacuum bagging consumables — are the foundation of modern performance boatbuilding. Understanding how they work, why specific materials are chosen for specific jobs, and how professional techniques differ from DIY approaches makes the difference between a repair that lasts and one that doesn’t.
The guides and project documentation here come directly from Shayne’s professional work and from the Paikea refit. Nothing is theoretical. Every technique documented has been applied on real boats under real conditions.
A Few Places to Start
Inside a Modern Carbon Race Boat: What Race Boat Structure Actually Looks Like — A rare look inside two working race boats, showing how bulkheads, chainplates, and structural laminate are actually built at the top level of the sport — and why so much of it applies just as well to a cruising boat on a tight budget. Read more →
How to Laminate a Repair Properly — The basics that actually determine whether a laminate holds: surface prep, dealing with gaps and uneven substrates, and the filled-resin bedding trick that eliminates voids before they start. If you only read one post before picking up a squeegee, make it this one. Read more →
Box Beam Build: Vacuum Infusion, Implosion, and Repair — Building a structural box beam from recycled PVC foam core, watching a vacuum infusion collapse it halfway through, and the diagnosis and repair that made the finished part stronger than the original plan. Three-part build documentation with the reasoning behind every material choice. Read more →
The Benefits of Using Peel Ply — What peel ply actually does in the lamination stack, why sanding a peel-ply surface protects the structural carbon underneath rather than cutting into it, and a link to the industry research worth reading before any serious secondary bonding job. Read more →
Wet Laminate vs. Prepreg: Choosing the Right Carbon Fibre Method — The real differences between wet laminate and prepreg carbon fibre — cure temperature, working time, cost, and handling — broken down from decades of top-level campaign experience, to help you choose the right method for your own project. Read more →
Forestay Attachment and Wet Preg: Engineering the Pin Into a Carbon Longeron — A technique most DIY builders have never heard of: wetting out and pre-assembling a multi-layer carbon patch on a table before it ever touches the part, so the fibre-to-resin ratio is locked in before application. Applied here to a custom pin-and-slot forestay attachment with no off-the-shelf equivalent. Read more →
How to Bolt into Carbon Fibre: Threaded Inserts vs. Helicoils — Mounting hardware to a carbon structure properly, without weakening it. A comparison of direct tapping, Helicoils, and threaded inserts, based on installing a Spectra watermaker mount that needed to be strong, serviceable, and non-invasive. Read more →
Further Reading
The topics covered include fabric selection — woven versus stitched cloth, why it matters, and when to use each — fibre orientation and load paths, resin systems, secondary bonding surface preparation, vacuum bagging technique for both flat panels and complex geometry, peel ply, breather felt, consumable stacks, and structural laminate scheduling. Browse all composites posts →
The Paikea refit series is the most detailed application of these techniques on this site — full build documentation from hull damage repair through to carbon beam construction, with the engineering reasoning explained at each step. Paikea’s Refit →
Technical References and Suppliers
For downloadable technical papers, engineering standards, CAD software references, and rig tuning specifications visit the Composite Engineering Tools page. Composite Engineering Tools →
The composites supplier for most of our interior upgrades is Easy Composites.
For the engineering detail behind the techniques — members-only deep-dive videos, laminate schedules, and technical forum discussion — the library is where we go further. Join here.