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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Carbon Fibre Bow Pole: Finishing the America’s Cup Front End The bow pole is the top section of the same America’s Cup mast that became the front beam and longeron. It had all its original halyard exits and fittings still attached when we got it, which created both opportunities and problems — some hardware was
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Inside a Modern Carbon Race Boat: What Race Boat Structure Actually Looks Like Every race boat interior looks the same once you strip away the paint job — and that’s not an accident. I can’t tell you which boat this is, and there’s plenty on board I’m not allowed to show you. Most of that
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How to Laminate a Repair Properly Most bad laminates aren’t caused by bad materials. They’re caused by skipping the boring parts. This one’s a simple polyester repair — closing up an old port light opening on Paikea, foam-cored, nothing exotic — but the basics behind it are the same basics most people get wrong. Not
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