Performance Sailing: Techniques for Catamarans and Multihulls
On-the-water knowledge from ocean crossings, Caribbean passages, America’s Cup campaigns, and 25 years of professional sailing — sail trim, daggerboard technique, heavy weather handling, and how to get the most out of a fast multihull. Videos are organised by topic below.
Browse all sailing techniques posts →
Practical Sailing Videos
The full library of hands-on sailing videos from Paikea — sail trim, reefing technique, and the small adjustments that make the biggest difference on a loaded-up multihull. Pulled from real passages rather than staged demonstrations, so what you’re watching is what actually happened on the water.
Upwind
How to Trim the Jib Upwind on a Catamaran — The interaction between sail shape, wind angle, and boat speed that separates real trimming from just pulling on a winch handle.
How to Sail Upwind in Your Catamaran — Why catamarans have an undeserved reputation for poor upwind performance, and what daggerboards actually do and don’t do for your angles.
Downwind
Downwind Spinnaker Trim: Windward Bow, Twist, and Reading the Apparent Wind — Why you’d run a kite from the windward bow instead of the bow pole, and how to read twist and apparent wind properly downwind.
Reefing and Sail Handling
How We Reef Our Mainsail Sailing Downwind — Managing the boom, using the topping lift as a backstay, and handling a sticky track and halyard lock while reefing on the move.
How We Sail the World’s Fastest Cruising Multihulls
Professional delivery experience on Gunboat 68s, 62s, and 66s, HH66, and racing a Chris White Atlantic 72 — real footage covering apparent wind at speed, self-tacking jib systems, mainsheet trim on a multimillion-dollar catamarans, and what actually happens crossing an ocean when things go wrong. This is large multihull sailing at the professional level, not a walkthrough.
How We Sail the World’s Fastest Cruising Multihulls →
Paikea’s Sail Inventory
A quick pointer to Paikea’s Sails, where you’ll find the full inventory, wind ranges, and the backstory on each recycled grand prix sail carrying the boat. For Paikea’s full sail inventory, wind ranges, and the stories behind each recycled grand prix sail –
Further Resources
Where to go next if you want the tools behind the technique — weather routing, navigation software, and the performance analysis used to turn raw sailing into real data —
Visit Navigation and Weather Tools→