Author: James Wharram
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New Beginnings
Last Friday Hanneke finally returned home from hospital after 4 weeks. It has been more of a drama than expected. She went in for a re-do heartvalve replacement after the one that was fitted 6 years ago started leaking badly in the last year. In recent months she had been feeling ill and tired and…
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Amatasi Build Will Start Soon
In July I described how our 27ft Amatasi emerged as Classic Boat’s prize-winning eco-design sailing craft. At the beginning of December our first volunteers, John and Michael began clearing out our work shed to prepare for the Amatasi build (anyone who has the space to save/store things can imagine how cluttered our shed had become)!…
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Rory McDougall Returns Home
Over the last two weeks of July I was being interviewed by a French yachting journalist (Jean-Yves Poirier – one time Wharram French agent and long-time friend) for an extensive biographical article in the French Yacht magazine, Chasse Marée. Going through my past life and old files we were constantly distracted by the many offshore…
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JWD – Eco Fishing Boat Design Competition Winners
The July issue of Classic Boat magazine features the winners of this year’s design competition for an Eco Fishing Boat. They wrote: “The brief was for an under 10m boat that would not need a license for fishing under sail or oar. Many entries nodded to traditional types, but the winner was surprisingly radical.” Amatasi…
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Rory And Cookie Finish Jester Challenge
In the early hours of Saturday 26th June Rory sailed his Tiki 21 ‘Cooking Fat’ into Newport, Rhode Harbour, finishing second in the Jester Challenge, just 2.5 hours after the Russian 25ft yacht ‘The Grand’, having sailed in 34 days from Plymouth, UK. In this office it was joy and Laphroaig whiskey all round. Congratulations…
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The Polynesian Catamaran Association
The PCA was founded in 1967 by a small group of the first Wharram builders. It started with the writing of a thin, rough, but very poetic magazine, called ‘The Sailorman’. Who were these first Wharram builders? During WWII thousands of young Englishmen were taken out of the pre-War English class system into the Army,…
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March Update
James flanked by his ‘3 sons’ about to fly home. To his left is Tulano and to his right is Caulton. Jamie Wharram is on the far right. Arrival Of The Boats I am now back in Devoran. Last week on the last blog of the Lapita Voyage official website, Klaus Hympendahl, describes the four…
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Christmas Update
James writes from Korido on the second leg of the Lapita Voyage: Storms and Calms This Lapita Voyage expedition has reached the little fisherman’s port of Korida on the Island of Superiori/Biak, which is an offshore island off the North coast of Indonesian Papua – New Guinea (135-136 degrees East). This island is 1250 Nm…
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The Launching Of The Boats
On 26th October 2008 the two boats for the 4000Nm long Lapita Voyage, ‘Lapita Tikopia’ and ‘Lapita Anuta’, slipped into the water without a hitch. Blessed with a few words and a splash of coconut milk from expedition leaders Klaus Hympendahl and myself they were heaved down a beautiful white-sand beach and into the Pacific.…
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Lapita Voyage Appeal
A month from today Hanneke and I will begin our flights out to Andy Smith Boatworks’ yard in the Philippines. A month later, on November 1st we will begin our Lapita Voyage, 3800Nm, south through the Moluccas, along the North coast of New Guinea, passing through the Solomon Islands and on to Tikopia and Anuta,…
