Reflections on a Busy Year at Sea and Beyond
We are already three months into the new year and it’s high time to report on happenings in the last year. 2024 was a very eventful year, which gave me little time to write, with lots of travel, including a 2000Nm ocean voyage on Spirit of Gaia.
So far I have not written about the continuing story of Spirit of Gaia after finishing her thorough refit in 2019. People who follow Facebook on which I post updates, will know that in the autumn of 2022, after James’ death and after sailing across the Atlantic on sistership Largyalo, I decided that Spirit of Gaia had spent enough time in Greece (23 years!) and she needed to see the open ocean again. This led to a voyage in three stages through the Mediterranean to the Algarve (South Portugal), where we arrived in October 2023. I intend to write a more detailed account of these voyages, which culminated in a lovely voyage from Ibiza to Faro with an all women crew.
2024
During the first cold months of the year in my office in Cornwall I spent my time checking, updating and scanning many of my drawings and instruction sketch books, so the printing on our office laser printer can be done more efficiently. With my plans to be away from the office more, this was essential to make work easier for the office staff.
May
Plans to go sailing on Spirit of Gaia in the Spring did not work out, but I did spend one week on board, moored in the lovely lagoon near Faro to check up on her. During this week I had a visit from some new special friends. Angie Richard, an energetic Australian woman, her French husband and children drove to Portugal from south-west France to meet me and to inspect Spirit of Gaia. Angie is a writer, traveller, researcher and film producer, see her impressive work on her website Voyage Virage. Angie has been producing the Women & the Wind documentary with Kiana Weltzien, which will debut soon. They will soon start building a Classic Narai Mk IV for their future voyaging and storytelling.
For their boat build they will be using the most eco ethical materials and Angie is devoting much time to the research of greener epoxies and cloth for sheathing that will have less impact on the environment at the end of its life than fibreglass does. Angie has become a close friend and we will be working on various projects together.
June
As my father, Nico Boon, who was a major player in the multihull world in the Netherlands, died last year (at 97) it was time for me to visit the family home in Groningen to divide some of my father’s possessions between me and my two sisters. I travelled in my ‘land-yacht’ and came back with boxes of boat books, two lovely old boat models, built by my father and I in 1968, my grandfather’s carpentry tool chest and various other precious mementos. I enjoyed spending time with my two sisters, going over many memories from our childhood together.
July
This was the month of the 2024 French traditional boat festivals in Brest and Douarnenez (Brittany, France). I love those festivals to which we had brought boats (by trailer) in the past. Tahiti Wayfarer in 2000, Amatasi in 2012 and Mana in 2016. This time I was not bringing a boat of my own, but was offered a place to crew on a beautiful recently built traditional French workboat for the Channel crossing from Falmouth to Brest. This boat had been built in France by a family of English friends we knew many years ago and I remet last year. This short voyage was a very interesting experience for me, as it was the first time I sailed a monohull in about 40 years. It has confirmed that catamarans are my preferred vessels to voyage on. I much prefer their level sailing, safe large decks and easy motion. I never got used to the rolling motion of the single hull that tried to tip me overboard. All the same, it was a nice voyage and Men’a’Vaur is a beautifully built boat.
After enjoying some days of the festivities in Brest, where hundreds of historic boats were gathered, I took a bus to Lorient where I was met by Angie and her family, who had come to Brittany to find a new place to live and build their Wharram catamaran. Together we went to Billy Marine boatyard to meet up with Benjamin Flao, the artist who made those evocative drawings for the Wharram articles in Voiles & Voiliers and Yachting World. Benjamin is the current owner of Tiki 28 Nr.4, ‘Louloute’, built in Devoran in 1991, and still a beautiful boat.
I joined Benji and his son to sail with them to Douarnenez to rejoin the maritime festival. It was a two day quiet sail and motor, rounding the infamous Point de Raz in a flat calm. We waited to meet up with the fleet of hundreds of boats sailing from Brest. This is an incredible sight, such a massive fleet of traditional sail, coming out of the distance towards you. In Douarnenez we moored on the beach and I enjoyed several more days of maritime festivities, meeting up with old friends and visiting lovely old boats.
August – September
The first weekend of August brought my birthday followed by the annual Wharram Hui here in Devoran. Seven of the smaller Wharrams attended, from Melanesia to Tiki 30, and around 25 people. A lovely atmosphere with nice people starting with a great BBQ at the JWD headquarters and sailing the following day to Roundwood Quay where we camped for the night.
Just days after the Hui I departed for the Algarve with long-term helper-friends Paul and Michael to prepare Spirit of Gaia for a voyage to the Azores. We were going to join a gathering of the Ocean Cruising Club to commemorate their 70 year jubilee, with a cruise to several islands in company with a number of other OCC yachts. New crew was Lizzie (the new owner of Narai ‘Sweet Thursday’ she and her partner had just bought in Holland) who joined us on the voyage out to get ocean sailing experience.
The fifth crew member was a French woman sailor from the Caribbean with an interest in buying a Wharram catamaran, invited unseen after some brief message contact. Though allegedly an experienced sailor, she often would not follow orders, worked to her own agenda and thereby caused discord and stress during the voyage. I had to tell her to leave the boat on arrival in Terceira. It is not often that I have had a disruptive crew member like this; in all her life Spirit of Gaia has attracted sympathetic and wonderful crew that have remained friends.
So it was great to welcome the return of Betsy (American) and Sara (Spanish) from last year’s all women crew for the voyage back, as well as friend Emma, a Cornish sailing instructor who started work in our office last year. Emma had found her mate in Micheal at the Hui, getting close sailing the Melanesia together. Nice to see romance blossom between good friends. The 1000Nm ocean voyage together cemented their relationship. Emma is now learning Dutch and going on regular visits to the Netherlands.
In short, Spirit of Gaia was our safe and seaworthy ship as always. We encountered some heavy weather spells on the voyage out, which tested the boat and crew. It gave me new confidence that Spirit of Gaia is still my strong ocean going home. The Azores, where I had never been before, were beautiful. We visited Terceira, São Michael and small Santa Maria. A speedy and smooth six day voyage brought us back to the Algarve and my mooring in the beautiful, peaceful lagoon near Armona island.
October
My travels were still not over. Many months earlier I had booked a place at the ISBSA17 Symposium for Boat and Ship archaeology to be held in Naples. James and I attended many of these conferences hosted every three years in different cities in Europe. James had given a paper on the canoe craft of the Pacific at the 2003 Conference in Roskilde. The last ISBSA we attended together was in Marseille in 2018.
This year was again a great coming together of interesting information and research. I enjoyed exploring Naples, meeting up with old friends from previous conferences, eating delicious Italian food, going on a fascinating day trip to Herculaneum and exploring the archaeological museum. It is amazing to see all the beautifully crafted daily objects and house interiors of 2000 years ago and their similarity to life in the present day.
November
This brought my final journey of the year. A week back on Gaia to make her mooring more secure. I travelled with Martin who owns a vintage Kelsall trimaran at Armona (he has also owned a Wharram Oro and a number of other multihulls in the past). Martin had arranged the construction of ground-screws to use as mooring, two for Gaia, two for Tiki 38 ‘Flying Pig’ also moored at Armona. Carrying these long steel objects on the train and plane was ‘interesting’!. They were booked on the Ryanair plane as large sports equipment, packaged in padding and a mummy sleeping bag.
Martin and Simon, owner of the Tiki 38, kindly helped me screw these nearly 2m long screws into the sand. I then connected them with chain and a large swivel and secured them with a heavy nylon warp to the boat. I receive regular updates on Gaia and the boats in the lagoon via a WhatsApp group of boat owners and locals, all looking after each other. Armona lagoon is not suitable for mooring keel boats and has few facilities on the island, hence has attracted a motley collection of vintage multihulls, that can take the ground at low tide, like Bobcats, Prouts, Wharrams and other unique multihulls from the 1960s-80s, with owners not interested in the conveniences and cost of a marina.
Back in Devoran this winter I have taken time to review and update all our Studyplans, which can be bought as digital downloads. I have checked through around 500 magazines in our archive dating from the last 40 years, all containing articles, letters or mentions of Wharram catamarans. The interesting articles have been scanned for our digital archives and some of the best added to the Studyplans. Anyone that has bought download Studyplans, can log in and re-download them to get the updated information.
Wharram Hui 2025
We have organised the annual Hui here at Devoran for many years. We think it is time for a change of venue. We would like to suggest that this summer’s Hui gets organised in a new location in the South West, maybe somewhere where there are a number of local Wharram catamarans like Exeter or Plymouth, maybe the Channel islands, the beautiful Scilly’s, or possibly somewhere on the French coast, or anywhere else suitable with a sheltered location for boats to gather and a place on land for a BBQ and even better, somewhere to camp. A nearby official campsite is also an option. Please put your thinking caps on and come up with suggestions and volunteers to take on the organising of the next Wharram Hui. JWD will attend, we look forward to an exciting event.
Leave a Reply