Author: James Wharram

I begin this Web letter with two pictures. Look at them. This single hull boat shown is a traditional ‘Friendship’ sloop. The man who is sailing it understands practical sailing, the ability to use rope and every scrap of ‘canvas’ to get maximum speed in light sailing winds. He is a ‘Sailor’. Good boat builders…

In my last Web letter, written in September, I revealed that I had visited Mongolia this year on a Wharram Designs related trip. Since then, several people have written, asking: “How can an ocean sailor and designer of Ocean Sailing boats end up with a sailing project in Mongolia?, surely Mongolia is right in the…

Three or four months can be a long time in a sailor’s life. In that time he/she could have crossed oceans or sailed many coastal miles calling in at many different lifestyle ports. When I last sat here at my writing table, I was looking through my studio windows at the cold, storm-driven rain of…

Spring has come to Cornwall! Hanneke my Design Partner is in Corfu refitting our 63′ Pahi ‘Spirit of Gaia’ with a working crew of 2 Dutchmen and 1 German. The common language is Dutch! This refit is the first major refit since the Gaia was in Brisbane in 1997 – a refit organised by Steve…

If the rest of the year 2002 continues as has the first month, January, I can imagine the day when myself “James” will return to our 63′ Pahi, ‘Spirit of Gaia’, hoist sails and sail away to the peace and solitude of the oceans. Positive excitement and work can seem great but too much of…

Steve Goodman, Webmaster, has been urging me to write of the ‘Spirit of Gaia’ summer voyage, 1200 nm from Corfu into the Adriatic Sea, northwards to Venice, then across to Croatia, South and back to Corfu. The idea is to encourage the Wharram sailors on this website or write privately more of their journeys for…

Looking out, as I write this, at the swans floating in our quiet Restronguet Creek, it seems odd to think that two weeks ago, in a three week visit, I was climbing the mountain temple of Borobudur in Java to be shown the stone carvings of the great outrigger ships that sailed in Indonesian and…

I must thank Lee Shipley, Ben Mullet, Colin Flynn for their recent discussion on aspects of Wharram Catamarans on our Web Forum between 16 January and 4 February (under headings NARAI Mk IV and Tiki 46 Rig). Lee Shipley for writing about the advantages on open decks, i.e. no or minimum deck cabins, Ben Mullet…

As I sit at my writing table, there are 70 mph gales and rain once again battering this house. As they have been, almost non-stop since late December (or at least it seems that way). On the 10th of December 2000, Pete Goss’s 120-ft racing catamaran Team Phillips, costing 4.5 million pounds to build, was…

As I write this, the first snow for ten years is falling outside the office windows. (An unusual occurrence here in Cornwall) It seems so recent when at this time of year we left Christmas Island and Indonesia behind us and were sailing aboard GAIA to Sri Lanka, from there to Oman, then non stop…