spirit of gaia catamaran

Professional BoatBuilder Magazine

James wharram remembrance.

By Jim Brown , May 24, 2022

James Wharram and Hanneke Boon stand on the bow of the 62′ (18.9m) Spirit of Gaia. Boon had a hand in design and took over their business, which still maintains a high brand visibility.

James Wharram, one of the last multihull pioneers from the postwar period, has embarked for the Great Perhaps. He died December 14, 2021, in Devoran, United Kingdom.

The early seafaring multihulls were considered to be yachting’s lunatic fringe. Now that they have gone mainstream, Wharram’s contribution to their ascendance is uniquely countercultural, and his life’s work deserves to be placed into some context.

In the decade from 1947 to ’57, two trail-blazing designers named Woody Brown and Rudy Choy, both in Hawaii, took inspiration from the ancient Pacific twin-hulled voyaging canoes. They combined that history with prewar wooden aircraft design and construction to produce several renegade yachts, which, by the mid-1950s, demonstrated their ability to make transoceanic passages so fast that traditional sailors were left incredulous.

Having come from a bit of Caribbean schooner bumming, I couldn’t believe it either, so I went to Hawaii, sailed with those men in those boats, and came away flummoxed. The speed was astounding, but the boats were too advanced for me. I desperately wanted a boat of my own for cruising, but the Hawaiian cats required advanced skills and serious money to build, and were intended mainly for zipping around. I was not focused on speed, but wanted a seagoing home that I could build myself.

Wharram’s Pioneering Ways

By pure happenstance, I bumped into Arthur Piver in California. He was designing little trimarans for backyard builders. I hacked one out, sailed it on San Francisco Bay and as far out as the Golden Gate, and was enthralled by its seaworthiness. This was in 1957, and I heard that one James Wharram had already crossed the Atlantic in a super-simple, raftlike catamaran with, aside from him, an all-girl crew. I asked myself, why not a larger supersimple trimaran? Now I realize that if I had bumped into Wharram instead of Piver, I might not have gotten the nickname “Trimaran Jim.”

By the early 1960s, both Piver and Wharram were selling owner-builder’s plans for seafaring vessels. The clientele was largely neophyte, the boats often crude, and their handling lubberly. The nautical community was understandably derisive, but the more the multis were chastised, the more committed their adherents became. By the mid-1960s, new designers (myself among them)—and even some professional builders—were popping up worldwide. Some evidence of the multihull’s potential, in racing and voyaging, was coming to light.

Author James Brown (left), an early trimaran pioneer, visited with Wharram and Boon in 2007 for a cruise in the Greek isles and to interview the couple on-camera for the OutRig project.

Wharram’s participation in this fitful progression was steady and formative. He identified his audience and spoke to them directly with promotional materials dappled with lots of sun, fun, and skin. While the multihull community at large was tending toward more sophistication and speed, and these boats were winning some important races, Wharram stayed focused on low cost and simplicity. His following and his business thrived, yet this success was not unique. The 1960s multihull phenomenon was in full swing, and I have often felt that those renegade boats, and their raucous proponents, were a product of their time.

There’s no making sense of the ’60s without pondering the counterculture, and while even the more yachtlike multis were found by traditional sailors to be either offensive or threatening or both, still their adherents reveled in their own sense of exclusiveness in being “yachting’s underdogs.” I believe it was that social stigma, that countercultural identity, that drove the early multihulls out of obscurity. Indeed, this rebellious aspect of human behavior seems now to explain much more than multihulls.

By the mid-1970s, it was time for the first World Multihull Symposium. Held in 1976 at a big convention hotel in Toronto, Canada, this supercharged event featured a panel of 10 designers from the U.S., Europe, and Down Under, and we addressed an audience of 300 devotees. We were all enthralled with the technical advances and seafaring achievements of modern multihulls. It was the first opportunity for many of us to meet, and of course, there was a lot of late-night “beach racing” in the hotel rooms, where many “trade secrets” were exchanged.

James Wharram and I hit it off, and on the morning of the second day, I was invited to join him and two of his then-five wives (they were openly polygamist) for an in-room breakfast. Their door was ajar when I arrived, and the three of them were sitting up in bed in their nighties. They all said, “Come on, get in!”

Trying not to reveal my reluctance, I stripped down to my undies and snuggled in beside a young Dutch siren who introduced herself as Hanneke Boon. Behold, here came room service. Jaws dropped, all laughed, and we spoke little of boats at that breakfast.

Years passed, and with Hanneke’s help we kept in touch, until one day I received a letter from James, saying, “Jim, I’ve had a rather difficult year. I was divorced by three wives at once.” They were all partners in their by-then booming plans business . One can only imagine the complications, but Hanneke survived the extrications.

Carrying Wharram’s Torch

I next saw the two of them together in 2007 when they invited me and Scott Brown (we are not related) to join them aboard their big catamaran, Spirit of Gaia , for a week’s cruise in the Greek Isles. Scott is a cinematographer from Toronto and the co-founder of our OutRig project to collect and preserve modern multihull history. Here was our chance to see the Wharrams in their true element, aboard the vessel in which they had recently circumnavigated. As we came aboard (it was James’s 85th birthday), he explained to us outright, “This is Hanneke’s boat. She’s the captain, and I’m only the admiral here.”

Spirit of Gaia, shown here on her mooring in Greece, is the largest Wharram design ever built. The wood-epoxy-construction was launched in 1992 for a circumnavigation and served as a cruising platform for Wharram’s later years.

Indeed, Hanneke took charge of the vessel, and as the cruise progressed, they sat with us for hours of on-camera interviews and exhibits. Soon it was apparent that Hanneke—with assistance from James’s first wife, Ruth—had for years also taken charge of their business. She had drawn the plans for all their later designs, produced their videos and publications, managed their promotions, and created their Web presence. A gifted pencil illustrator, she had portrayed their liberated “product personality,” which, while on board, they certainly personified. Looking back now on that idyllic cruise, I propose herewith that their 60-year-long endeavor be termed The Wharram/Boon Design Partnership .

The last time I saw James and Hanneke was in 2008 at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, when WoodenBoat magazine hosted a big dinner in a big tent for “the multihull pioneers.” There we were, at the very seat of American nautical heritage, hosted by the most traditional fixture of the yachting press, no longer yachting’s underdogs. Of the several presentations, Wharram’s was by far the best. He delved into the ancient “raft-type” multihulls, from which he had taken inspiration for his designs, and concluded that, since 1957, some 10,000 clients had bought into his concept.

During his ovation, I remarked to Hanneke that her man had become quite the raconteur. She confessed that, in their global gatherings with Wharram devotees, James had probably given that spiel about 50 times.

Today, multihulls often dominate offshore racing, sometimes overpopulate the cruising harbors of the world, and apparently comprise the “up side” of the marine marketplace. This includes vessels that are custom and production built, recreational and commercial, power and sail. The smaller trailerable multis are popular as garage-size projects, but seafaring multihulls built by their owners are comparatively rare these days. Still, Wharram’s designs are emerging from backyards and boatyards all over the world. James leaves an armada of unique twin-hulled, raftlike watercraft in his wake. He has enticed many a landsman to hit the briny trail in search of adventure, self-discovery, and manhood. Hanneke, or Captain Boon, his sole surviving Mate, is well placed to perpetuate that legacy.

Admiral Wharram, sail on!

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James Wharram: Eight bells for the multihull pioneer

Katy Stickland
January 7, 2022

Tributes have been paid to pioneering multihull designer and sailor James Wharram, who has died aged 93

James Wharram dedicated his life to to proving the Polynesian double canoe was an ocean worthy craft. Credit: James Wharram Designs

James Wharram, considered by many as the father of modern multihull cruising, has died, aged 93.

The free-spirited sailor and designer specialised in double-canoe style sailing catamarans, inspired by the Polynesian double canoe.

Born in Manchester in 1928, Wharram designed his first offshore cruising catamaran, Tangaroa in 1953 having read about Frenchman Éric de Bisschop’s 1937-1939 voyage from Hawaii to France in his double canoe.

Ruth Merseburger, later Ruth Wharram, was an early believer in James’s designs and theories and helped build his first multihull, Tangaroa . Courtesy: James Wharram Designs

Determined to prove the seagoing qualities of the double canoe, Wharram, accompanied by Ruth Merseburger, who later became Ruth Wharram, and Jutta Schultze-Rohnhof, sailed his 23ft 6 inch multihull from Falmouth across the Atlantic to Trinidad in 1956.

Wharram wrote about crossing the Bay of Biscay in Tangaroa for Yachting Monthly in 1956, going into details about the catamaran’s performance, easy motion and stability. This was in direct contrast to the then held opinion that a motion of a catamaran would be worse than on a keel yacht.

Three years later, having built the 40ft Rongo on a beach in Trinidad with the help of French sailor Bernard Moistessier, Wharram, Ruth and Jutta sailed to New York before crossing the North Atlantic – the first ever North Atlantic West-to-East crossing by multihull.

Onboard Rongo in the Atlantic with his son Hannes. Courtesy: James Wharram Designs

James Wharram started designing for self-builders in 1965.

Along with his partners Ruth Wharram and Hanneke Boon, he created distinctive V-hull double-ended catamarans, from 13ft to over 60ft, selling more than 10,000 sets of plans.

Jutta Schultze-Rohnhof and Ruth Merseburger with James Wharram before they left Falmouth onboard Tangaroa. Courtesy: James Wharram Designs

Wharram believed in a ‘less is more’ approach to boat building, and all of his boats are of simple construction, aimed at amateur boat builders, including the Tiki 21, Cooking Fat , which became the smallest catamaran to sail around the world when skippered by Rory McDougall from 1991-1997.

In May 1992, Wharram launched the 63ft Pahi, Spirit of Gaia , from his home on Restronguet Creek in Cornwall, sailing 32,000 miles around the world from England to Greece via the Pacific.

Spirit of Gaia. Courtesy: James Wharram Designs

The catamaran, which has a low freeboard and trademark Wharram Wingsail Rig, was conceived as a base ship for studying whales and dolphins at sea, able to accommodate 16 people offshore.

Continues below…

Wharram cats launched to search for ancestors

Lapita voyage boats launched in Philippines

James Wharram with his crew, Jutta and Ruth, in Falmouth September 1955 aboard TANGAROA

60th anniversary of first Wharram catamaran to set sail from Falmouth

60 years ago, on the 27th September 1955, James Wharram set sail from Falmouth aboard a self-built 23ft 6in flat-bottomed

In 2008, Wharram’s career came full circle, when 50 years after his pioneering voyages, he sailed 4,000 miles on one of two 38ft double canoes along the island chains of the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea and the Solomons.

Sailing Spirit of Gaia. Courtesy: James Wharram Designs

Known as the Lapita Voyage , the canoes were based on an ancient Polynesian canoe hull-form, and were powered by sail alone, using traditional Polynesian crab claw sails and steering paddles.

Paying tribute to her life partner, Hanneke Boon wrote: ‘ James was a trailblazer, a fighter with great determination and vision. From a young age he followed his passions – to roam the hills – for fair politics – for intelligent women – to sail the seas – to prove the Polynesian double canoe an ocean worthy craft – to become a Man of the Sea.

With his life partners, Ruth Wharram, who died in 2013 aged 92 and Hanneke Boon. Courtesy: James Wharram Designs

‘These passions made him into a pioneer of catamaran sailing and a world-renowned designer of unique double-canoe catamarans that now sail the oceans.

‘He designed for people who wanted to break out of mundane lives, gave them boats they could build at an affordable cost and gave them the opportunity to become People of the Sea like himself.’

James Wharram preferred sailing to building and tried to make all of his design as simple as possible to build. Courtesy: James Wharram Designs

In the last few years of Wharram’s life he developed Alzheimer’s. He died on 14 December.

‘He could not face the prospect of further disintegration and made the very hard call to end it himself. It was with great courage that he lived his life and with great courage he decided it was the time to finish,’ wrote Hanneke

‘In this moment of great loss we should all remember the good and glorious times of a life fulfilled. This is not the end, I, we, all the Wharram World will keep his work alive.’

James Wharram 1928-2021

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James Wharram: life and legacy of the iconic designer

January 29, 2024

Julien Girardot meets Hanneke Boon in Cornwall to discover the legend and legacy of pioneering catamaran designer James Wharram

Falmouth, Cornwall, 1955: a legend is born along Customs House Quay. A smartly dressed young man with wild, curly hair has launched a 23ft catamaran, built in just a few months for the modest sum of £200 (the equivalent of around £6,500 today).

Rigged as a ketch with battened junk sails, the aptly named Tangaroa (meaning ‘God of the Sea’ in Polynesian) marked the beginning of the epic Wharram story.

At the time, catamarans were considered dangerous and eccentric, while yachting was a pastime largely reserved for high society. But sailing already has other visionaries. On the deck of Tangaroa, beside James, are two young women: Jutta Schulze-Rhonhof and Ruth Merseburger. In puritanical post-war England, setting off to cross the Atlantic with two young women – and German ones at that – was downright shocking! But these three young people care not a jot about conventional thinking. They dream of adventure and their enterprise is an act of defiance.

For years James Wharram has nurtured a passion for the history of sailing pioneers and the ethnic origins of the multihull. Devouring every book on the subject he could lay his hands on, he discovered the story of Joshua Slocum, the first solo circumnavigator (1895-1898), and the voyage of Kaimiloa by the Frenchman Eric de Bisschop. The tale, published in English in 1940, of de Bisschop’s attempt to prove the seaworthiness of double canoes by making a voyage from Hawaii to France on a catamaran he had built on the beach, became Wharram’s primary source of inspiration.

Riding out the storm: James Wharram at the helm of Tangaroa in Biscay in 1955. Photo: Julien Girardot

Wharram disagreed with many assumptions of the time, and his first Atlantic crossing was an opportunity to refute Thor Heyerdahl’s theory on the settlement of the Pacific islands. Wharram contested the assertion of the Danish anthropologist who, after his voyage aboard the Kon-Tiki in 1947, affirmed that the boats used were simple rafts. Wharram was convinced that the boats were more akin to double canoes with sails, capable of going upwind and holding a course. These early multihulls, consisting of two hollowed-out tree trunks, were connected by crossbeams bound together with plant fibre. The sails were probably made from what is known as ‘tapa’ in Polynesia, hammered tree bark, which was also used to make clothes.

The three young adventurers left Falmouth on 27 September 1955 on a boat loaded with books, basic foods, and very little else. Despite a fraught passage, encountering storms in the Bay of Biscay and being suspected of being spies by Franco’s Guardia Civil, the trio successfully crossed the Atlantic and reached the island of Trinidad on 2 February 1957.

Without a penny to their name, they adopted a simple island life, and Jutta gave birth to her and James’ first child, Hannes. The unconventional polyamorous family lived aboard a raft inspired by the floating dwellings of the Pacific, nicknamed ‘the paradise island of the South Seas’. Tangaroa, now tired, was abandoned, as Wharram decided to build a new catamaran. By chance, two solo sailors came to anchor in the bay where the Wharram tribe lived afloat, and the legendary Bernard Moitessier and Henry Wakelam helped Wharram build his new design, Rongo.

Wharram, Merseburger and Schulze-Rhonhof aboard Tangaroa in Falmouth, 1955, before their Atlantic crossing. Photo: Julien Girardot

Thanks to the experience of his first transatlantic voyage, as well as knowledge gathered from Wharram’s endless reading, Rongo was much more accomplished. While Tangaroa was flat-bottomed, Rongo has V-hulls. To prove the design’s seaworthy qualities, Wharram decided to tackle the North Atlantic, sailing from west to east with his two companions. This route was known to strike fear into the hearts of multihull sailors of the time, as the two previous attempts had tragically ended in two deaths.

The crew left La Martinique for New York on 16 April 1959, one year after Rongo’s construction began. The return voyage to Conwy in Wales took 50 days, but the gamble paid off, and Wharram’s new design was the first to achieve what many thought impossible. The curly-haired eccentric became something of a celebrity, and following his great Atlantic adventure, James published his first book, Two girls, Two Catamarans. The years that followed were Wharram’s golden age, with plans released to suit every budget and every dream. Soon there were Wharram designs all over the world, connected by a powerful community spirit.

Drawing a Wharram

My own journey to this remote corner of Cornwall began decades before. After 15 years of travelling the world, inventing and reinventing my life, including many years living in the Pacific islands, I felt the need to capture these experiences by creating the boat of my dreams.

Illustrations inspired by a visit to the Wharram design office in Cornwall. Image: Benjamin Flao

While living in Tuamotu, I was involved in several incredible projects to build traditional sailing canoes under the directive of talented local Tahitian boatbuilder, Alexandre Genton (now chief of operations at Blue Composite shipyard in Tahiti). At first we launched small single-seat sailing canoes with two outrigger floats. These are the simplest way to sail: a sheet in one hand, a paddle in the other, which you plunge over the side of the canoe into the water, and it makes a perfect rudder. Then we built a larger version, Va’a Motu, for a hotel in Bora Bora, of splendid stripped kauri planking. Finally, we worked with the local population to build an ambitious 30ft Va’a Motu with a single ama, on the atoll of Fakarava in the Tuamotu archipelago.

Curiously, after many experimental trials at building and sailing canoes, my imagined ideal yacht turned out to be something very close to a Wharram design, which I learned as soon as I shared my first cautious sketches with friends. I realised I had to meet James Wharram.

In October 2021, I dialled the number of JW Designs. A woman answered; James’ long-term life and business partner Hanneke Boon. I tell her my ideas to build from one of their plans: the Islander 39. We began an email exchange and when I asked her what James thought of this model, in November 2021, less than a month before he died, she replied: “James is enthusiastic about your project. He’s now 93 years old and nearing the end of his life.

The Pahi 63 Spirit of Gaia which Wharram and Boon sailed around the world. Image: Benjamin Flao

“He has been looking at the Islander 39 design for several years and often says, ‘I wish I had one myself.’ It’s the only Wharram design that has never been built, so your project is a wish come true for him.”

On 14 December 2021, James Wharram passed away. Out of respect for the bereavement, and due to Covid-related travel restrictions, we decided to postpone our meeting. Some months later on a beautiful spring afternoon, I landed in Plymouth with my friend and artist Benjamin Flao, himself the owner of a Wharram-designed Tiki 28, and headed for Devoran near Truro in Cornwall, the stronghold of the Wharram family.

Hanneke welcomes us into her office. It is a beautiful wooden cabin, warm and bright, overlooking the changing lights of Cornwall. The place looks like a museum telling the story of a life of travel and passion through yacht models, photographs and unusual objects. James is there, you can feel it. A glance at the shelves of the library shows an impressive array of rare and precious books, mostly dealing with navigation and shipbuilding in Oceania, and demonstrates the seriousness with which Wharram and Boon studied the history and technicality of ‘double canoes’.

“I’d like our boats to be called double canoes and not catamarans, which I think is a mistake,” Hanneke explains. The word catamaran, originally pronounced ‘catamaron’, comes from the Tamil dialect of katta ‘to bind’ and maram ‘wood’, as they were actually one-man rafts used to work on the outer hull of ships. The English pirate and adventurer William Dampier, in the 1690s, was the first to describe a two-hulled vessel as a catamaran, but although catamarans might be the commonly accepted word nowadays, it’s actually a mistake.

oon unfolds the plans of the Islander 39, the only Wharram design that has never been built. Many plans were hand-drawn by Boon. Photo: Julien Girardot

Hanneke unfolds the Islander 39 plan on her drawing board. Like all Wharram plans for half a century, it has been marked with her signature. Despite this unique pencil stroke, she has remained in the shadow of Wharram’s mythology for 50 years. Since 1970, Boon has drawn the majority of the construction plans by hand. They’re works of art and the best way to imagine yourself aboard a Wharram. Without her, JW Designs would not be what it is.

Originally from the Netherlands, Boon grew up in a family of sailing enthusiasts. By the age of 14 she was already building small canoes and at the age of 20 she joined the Wharram team and quickly became his co-designer. They criss-crossed the Atlantic twice in quick succession aboard Tehini, the crab claw-rigged double canoe on which James and several women lived for 10 years. Since then, Hanneke has escaped from her office whenever she can to sail thousands of miles on all the seas of the world, always using a double canoe.

Those radical vessels included the Spirit of Gaia, also built on site, through a sliding door next to Hanneke’s office. It was aboard this 63ft Pahi, Wharram’s flagship, that the Wharrams sailed around the world from 1994 to 1998. James described Spirit of Gaia as “a beautifully shaped woman he was in love with”.

Boon’s design office is adjacent to the Wharram HQ in Devoran and looks out over one of the River Fal’s many creeks. Photo: Julien Girardot

In Wharram’s wake

James and Hanneke’s home is a former veterinary surgery. The furnishings are basic, with only the essentials, but the doors close by themselves, thanks to an ingenious system of weights, ropes and pulleys. Benjamin and I offer to shop and cook, and in the living room, we put the dishes down and eat on the floor, like on the deck of a Wharram.

Jamie, James and Hanneke’s son, joins us for the meal with his partner Liz. “James has remained the icon of the business, but it’s really Hanneke who has been doing the job for the last 10 years. She is JW Designs,” confides Liz.

Jamie is at first more subdued, but talking to him you soon discover a true character. Given the world he grew up in, it’s surprising to learn that sailing is not really his thing: “I get bored quickly at sea and I’m sick most of the time! I prefer to be underwater. Above the line is not my thing.

Evocative illustration of the Wharram workshop in Devoran, Cornwall. Image: Benjamin Flao

“I do like the calmness of the ocean though, that parenthesis effect, detached from our hectic lives on land. In fact, I think the best thing about sailing is remembering long voyages, not making them,” Jamie jokes.

But he is keen to preserve Wharram’s legacy and the couple are thinking ahead to when Hanneke can no longer hold the fort. “As long as Hanneke is alive, the business will be run in her own way. But it’s certain that something will be put in place to enable people to continue to acquire the building plans, at the very least, this service will remain guaranteed.”

Back in the office next door, Nicki John answers clients and sends plans around the world. She’s only been with JWD for a couple of years, but that’s long enough for her to fall in love with the company’s story.

“One of the things I loved about James was that he came in every day. He’d knock on the door and jokingly ask, ‘Do you have time for some gossip?’ And then he’d tell me all sorts of stories. His travels, the women he had shared his life with, it was fascinating. When he was 18, he hitchhiked to Europe, smuggling coffee on the black market to finance his adventures. James’ story is just phenomenal.

Mana 24 is available as a CNC-cut self-build kit boat. Photo: Julien Girardot

“One day James came in, took out a plan, unfolded it as he sat down, and said, ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ James was deeply convinced of Hanneke’s talent. He never stopped admiring her,” Nicki says fondly.

The community Wharram fosters is unique. Nicki shows us a photo that defines the ‘Wharram spirit’, of the hull of a Wharram being lifted out of the second floor window of a home in England. With no shed to build their Wharram design, they decided to use their living room as a boatyard. “This picture shows that if you really want to build a Wharram, you can do it anywhere,” says Nicki, “During Covid, we sold a lot more plans. Confined, people dreamed of freedom and took time to figure out how they wanted to live their lives.”

Now it’s Hanneke’s turn to shine as the head of JWD. In contrast to the technologically-led path that sailing often follows, James and Hanneke’s ‘low tech’ approach drives those who follow it to reconnect with past knowledge, practices, and philosophical approaches to our relationship with the world and the way we live in it.

Their love of minimalism is also at odds with many trends in modern yachting, but it brings its own luxury. The joy of not having too much of anything allows you to make room for the essentials, and for the beauty that surrounds you.

My dream of building Wharram’s unfulfilled plan, the Islander 39, remains. I’m in no hurry. Like the libertarian vision of James Wharram, it endures.

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JAMES WHARRAM: His New Autobiography

Dec. 18/2020: James Wharram, who first came to notice back in the 1950s after sailing a crude homemade catamaran across the Atlantic from England to Trinidad with two occasionally (and famously) unclad women, has cut a unique trail through the firmament of modern yacht design. He has always planted his flag far outside the boundaries of Western nautical convention, and in spite of this, or because of it, became one of the most successful creators of build-it-yourself boat designs in the history of sailing. Now in his tenth decade, with the help of his longtime design and business partner Hanneke Boon, James has at last shared his full story in People of the Sea , recently published by Lodestar Books . Those who have long wondered about this enigmatic figure, and even those who have never heard of him, will find it a fascinating tale.

Coming of age in Manchester, England, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, James Wharram came from a working-class background and early on developed a liberal, some would say libertine, frame of mind. His first exposure to outdoor sports was as a “bog-trotter” who spent weekends mucking about the moors and mountains of northern Britain, but his interest soon switched to seafaring after he found a seductive node of small-boat adventure books in the Manchester Central Library. The most influential of these was The Voyage of the Kamiloa , by Eric de Bisschop , who sailed a Polynesian-style “double canoe” from Hawaii to France via the Cape of Good Hope in the late 1930s.

The great “anti-influence” in Wharram’s life was the much more renowned Thor Heyerdahl , whose raft voyage from South America to Polynesia was documented in his bestselling book Kon-Tiki . Heyerdahl had hoped to prove that the Pacific islands were first populated by mariners who drifted downwind from the Americas. Wharram, with de Bisschop as his inspiration, has spent his life championing the opposite proposition, which has ultimately proven correct, that the islands were in fact first populated by mariners from Asia, sailing to windward in supple, seaworthy double-canoes.

Though he made his name in catamarans, Wharram’s first serious boat was a 20-foot converted lifeboat with a junk rig named Annie E. Evans . He’s seen here aboard Annie with his first sea-going partner, Ruth Merseburger. Ruth and James lived and worked together until her death in 2013

Ruth aboard Wharram’s first catamaran, Tangaroa , built in 1954

James sailed transatlantic on Tangaroa in 1955-56 with both Ruth (right) and another woman, Jutta Shultze Rhonhof (left). His first book, Two Girls Two Catamarans , tells the story of this voyage and its aftermath. Both Ruth and Jutta were German, hardy survivors of the apocalyptic postwar scene there. Jutta, sadly, was traumatized and badly scarred by her postwar experience

Tangaroa eventually disintegrated after James and crew reached Trinidad aboard her. Here we see James building a new boat there, a 40-footer to be named Rongo , with some help from the famous French singlehander Bernard Moitessier (center) and Henry Wakelam (right), who was a great friend and mentor to Moitessier

Rongo under sail. Wharram sailed her with Ruth and Jutta from Trinidad first to New York City, then on back to the UK in 1959. Rongo was Wharram’s first design with a V-shaped hull, a feature that became increasingly important to him

Those familiar with Wharram’s career will wonder if he explains in this new book what exactly has been going on with all the women around him. In addition to Ruth and Jutta, seen above, James’s Dutch partner, Hanneke Boon, whom he first met when she was but a teenager, has also played a very major role in his life. He has had children by both her and by Jutta. And indeed, one intriguing fact we learn in this autobiography is that Wharram at one point worked professionally with a group of five different women in Ireland, but was ultimately “divorced” by three of them.

To his credit, Wharram’s treatment of the subject is perfectly straightforward and not at all lascivious. He makes it all seem very natural–as it obviously has been for him and all concerned–and by the end you are left to wonder why more people don’t live this way. Wharram’s great talent it seems, both as a designer and as a person, is not that he has attracted women to sailing per se, but rather that he has fostered sailing communities (hence the book’s title) in which women have played very prominent roles.

Sailing in the West Indies aboard the third ocean-going double-canoe James designed and built for himself, the 52-foot Tehini

One of the great overarching goals of Wharram’s life had always been to sail one of his own boats into the Pacific, and it is surprising how long it took for him to achieve this. It wasn’t until 1995, aboard his great Pahi 63, Spirit of Gaia , the most Polynesian of his design iterations, that James and company (after a nearly calamitous Panama Canal transit) finally emerged in the great ocean that had originally inspired him as a designer.

It is also a bit ironic that just as James sought and did not receive recognition from the British yachting establishment early in his career, he likewise was dissed during his voyage into the Pacific by the traditional Polynesian sailing revivalists who emerged in the late 20th century. In the end, however, Wharram has had his sweet revenge. The British establishment has at last paid him his due. And in what was likely a crowning affirmation of Wharram’s career, when the last of the great traditional Polynesian navigators, Mau Piailug, boarded Gaia in Raiatea he at once pronounced “this is how it should be done.” Mau in fact was so impressed he eventually asked James for a custom design, the Islander 65, but unfortunately passed on before it could be built.

Design for the Pahi 63. James and company ultimately sailed this boat around the world

James meeting with elders aboard Gaia at Tikopia in the Solomon Islands

Hanneke Boon steering Lapita Anuta , a recreation of a prehistoric Pacific voyaging craft, into Rabaul, Papua New Guinea

I have read many memoirs by yacht designers, but this one, I have to say, has been by far the most various and intriguing. I am sure anyone else interested in the “outer limits” of modern yacht design will feel the same way.

People of the Sea

James Wharram with Hanneke Boon

Lodestar Books (2020)

DANIEL HAYS: My Old Man and the Sea and What Came After

CRAZY CUSTOM CRUISING BOATS: New Rides for Pete Goss and Barry Spanier

The enthusiasm for trimarans and cats in the 1960s-70s is an under-recorded part of the history of sailing. I think it’s because they were part the of counter-culture of the time (aka hippies) and the boats were not ends in themselves but part of a voyaging lifestyle- embodied by the likes of James Wharram, and Arthur Piver. I was a tangential part of that movement in the ’70s on the West Coast and it was a fabulous time. The sailing sky seemed to be unlimited and the Pacific Ocean a blue highway to a better, more integrated life. The whole scene had a lot of flaws but it was fun while it lasted!

I remember when a 10 year over 60 years ago in a boatyard at hoo a plywood catermerang being built, never raw it finished,

HI my name is Keith Davies and i know a man named Geoff Gatley who was a close neighbour of James in south Manchester and he helped to build one of his catamarans and then transport it down to the south coast. The reason i am telling you is he is reading People of the Sea and we were talking about his time with James bringing back happy memories . if there is any more information it would be much appreciated to remember more happy memories

Hello Keith! Glad you are enjoying James’s book and found this post. As for more information, I hope I’m not the first to tell you this, but James recently passed away: https://wavetrain.net/2021/12/19/dead-guy-james-wharram/

He had a good long run. But he will be missed.

Hi Charles yes. Wharram ‘s designs were a way for dreamers to become sea people. My wife and I Joined that gathering in 1976; we met Hanneka while building a Tangaroa. After two years cruising the Caribbean we vowed to build a bigger cat, using many of James’ ideas. For 10 years now, here in Florida, we have been creating a 46′ cat, and teaching apprentices boatbuilding. If anyone would like to learn more about the above, please shoot me an email.

I share your fascination for James Wharram, his wonderful designs and his reluctance to live a commonplace existence. Alas his autobiography, seems out of print at this moment.

@Anton: Is it? I know the first edition sold out, but I thought I heard a second had been printed, in a somewhat smaller format. I’d check the wharram website. I think Hanneke Boon may be offering them there.

Nomads of the wind – an article by James Wharram

January 5, 2022

In light of the recent passing of pioneering multihull designer James Wharram, we share his Practical Boat Owner article from our October 1994 issue, published for the first time online.

To Gran Canaria from Tenerife at 14 to 16 knots

In 1993 James Wharram and his family adopted the life-style of Polynesian migrants on board their double canoe Spirit of Gaia .

They voyaged 6,000 miles, experienced dozens of adventures and discovered why those intrepid pacific explorers worshipped their boats as gods..

An article by James Wharram.

The BBC’s acclaimed series Nomads of the Wind , was the fantastic story of the Polynesian migrations and subsequent island discoveries across thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean aboard sea-going double canoes.

These double canoe raft ships were known to have been developed for offshore sailing 2,000 years ago.

A direct descendant of these craft are the present day catamarans.

Can we compare the sailing ability of the modern catamaran to the ancient double canoe vessels of the Polynesians?

Can we present-day sailors and designers learn anything from one of Man’s great ethnic ship designs of history ?

I think we can.

Where the spirit took them: Spirit of Gaia

Live-aboard lifestyle

In 1993 I lived as a ‘ Nomad of the Wind ‘ aboard our 63ft ethnic proportioned Double Canoe, the Spirit of Gaia .

We made a voyage of 6,000 miles, sailing from landfall to landfall: Falmouth, North Spain, South Portugal, and from island group to island group: the Canaries, the Madeiras, the Baleares (in the Mediterranean), a voyage of many adventures, that stimulated new ideas and gave us insights into the minds of Polynesians.

There was the memorable voyage, 500 miles from Gran Canaria to Funchal on Maderia, when, with the rudders lashed, in light winds, the Double Canoe glided across the ocean.

For a while, we left this century and the western world to become a part of the Polynesian sea world.

Turtles in the sea, dolphins around, sea birds flying in the sunset, and the nights lit with brilliant stars.

We loved our ship.

Poetry of the sea

Throughout history seafaring races have been poetical about their seafaring craft.

But you can only be in love with a ship that returns affection in sailing ability.

It could be the ability to point into the wind, so that you can reach a sheltering bay or harbour that lies upwind; it may be that the sails are easily handled in a squall; its motion may feel like a dance over the waves or it may have the lift and buoyancy to ride out storms.

Maybe it has a sense of power in reserve for that emergency, when you need to push the boat harder without incurring damage to the craft.

Sea-people learn to trust their subjective and instinctive boat feeling, that their craft is in tune with nature.

The Spirit of Gaia is such a ship.

To satisfy the Western analysing part of our nature, we fitted the Spirit of Gaia with Brookes and Gatehouse “Focus” instruments for recording true and apparent wind angles, windspeed and a sensitive log for speed through the water.

In addition we carried a Sony GPS for point position finding.

Some yachting magazines print boat performance in a diagram called a polar curve, which combines three facts: True wind speed, true wind angle and boat speed, but to get a better picture of how the boat sails, you need more information: apparent wind angles, sail area carried related to the stability of the vessel (most important for multihulls) and speed/length ratios to compare the results with other boats.

Hanneke, my design partner, chief mate on the Spirit of Gaia , has drawn the Gaia’s sailing performance in wind force 5-7 (see figure 1) giving all this additional information and, for those interested in the finer points of sailing, the contain much to study.

Spirit of Gaia – sailing performance in open ocean wind force 5-7, waves 5-6ft high, occasionally 10-13ft

The Polynesian ethnic proportioned Spirit of Gaia can sail with her schooner rig 45º off the true wind, can cruise in force 4 (11-16 knots) winds at average speeds of 10 knots, which is a speed/length ratio of almost 1.5√WLL, (WLL being the waterline length) equivalent to the top average which a monohull racer, hard driven over on her ear, can be expected to achieve.

Pushed a little harder, she sails at 14-16 knots, which equals 2.2√WLL.

Note, at this speed her stability of 56 knots!

Many people fear fast catamarans as they are known to capsize.

Festive feel on the helm

The joy of sailing the Spirit of Gaia at an easy 10 knots was best summed up by an Austrian sailor, who, after four hours at the wheel, when offered a relief, declined, saying:

“This is like Christmas all the time.”

To sail with ease, upright and with little structural stress at speeds proportional to the Clipper Ships and hard-driven modern Ocean Racers, in wind strength of only 13-15 knots (force 4) does demonstrate the design genius of the ancient Polynesian Double Canoes.

A student of the pre-European Polynesian Double Canoe designs could point out:

“Your Spirit of Gaia may have Polynesian hull shapes, rounded V hulls and waterline/length ratios of 17:1, but she is different in certain aspects of design from an ethnic Polynesian Double Canoes. “You have improved on the basic concept with modern design concepts, for the Spirit of Gaia has the wide overall beam and the large sail area/displacement ratio of a modern multihull, using advanced sail design with sails made of modern Terylene. “The Polynesian sails were made of ‘matting’.”

This is all true, and, using the hulls of the existing Spirit of Gaia , Hanneke has drawn out a more ethnic Polynesian Double Canoe (see figure 2).

In reverence to the Spirit of Gaia’s Hawaiian name, given to her by her Hawaiian launching crew, who came to Cornwall specifically for the occasion, we will refer to this craft as the Makua Hine Honua .

The author in relaxed mode

Seagoing performance

At first glance, the diagram suggests a very narrow beamed catamaran with peculiar shaped sails of moderate area and a deep paddle for steering and another for leeway prevention.

Can such a craft compare in speed and seagoing ability with a modern performance catamaran?

Let us look in more detail at the possibilities.

The prime factor in design of cruising catamaran speed and sea-going ability is sufficient stability, for without it, you have an upside down catamaran.

The ‘narrow beamed’ (by modern standards) Makua Hine Honua with her low rig has a calculated static stability of 28 knots!

This means, under full sail, it would take a gale of 28 knots to capsize her (though, to allow for wind gusts, ie dynamic stability, it would be advisable to consider reefing at 23 knots of wind).

Many of the wide-beamed, modern, performance, cruising catamarans on the market, to which the Makua Hine Honua is compared, have a static stability as low as 25-27 knots.

This means, if you do not stand by the sheets at wind speeds of force 4 prepared for instant release, in a wind gust, there is a risk of sudden capsize.

Nobody is quite certain why Polynesian Catamarans had, in relation to the modern catamarans, a narrow overall beam, though we can see, that it did not affect stability.

For years I thought it was for greater manoeuvrability when under power (ie paddle power).

Now I am beginning to suspect that the Polynesians were as advanced in hull dynamics as they were in the aerodynamics of sail design.

Perhaps the interacting bow waves, through their narrow hull separation, provide close to the bows a hydro-dynamic lift against pitchpoling – a problem of some modern catamarans.

The sail rig on the Makua Hine Honua does look like the modern Bermudan sail rig set upside down.

C. A. Marchaj, a leading theoretician on aero and fluid dynamics of yacht design, did tunnel testing of Polynesian sail shapes, and found that close hauled at a true wind angle of 40º the Polynesian sail gave 5% less drive than the modern “High Performance” Bermudan mainsail and jib.

However, free the Polynesian sail off to wind angles of 50º-60º on the beam, and this sail shape gives 5-10% more drive than the Bermudan mainsail and jib.

Polynesian know-how

The Polynesian sails of old were made of matting but not the type of matting you may have on your kitchen floor.

Generations of Polynesians had developed a tough, finger-woven “fabric” from finely split tensile Pandanus palm leaves.

It was a most effective windward material.

The rig shown on the Makua Hine Honua with modern theory and experiments in wind tunnels in its favour can be regarded as an efficient, high pointing windward rig.

The original Polynesians lived and sailed in the trade wind areas, where for most of the time winds blow between force 4-7.

The Polynesians did not need large sail areas.

In winds of force 4 upwards, the moderate 800 square feet Polynesian rig of the Makua Hine Honua would power her on a close reach (55º-60º off the wind) between 150-250 miles in a 24 hour period.

So, with light overall weight (we calculated her weight at 7 tons in traditional materials), plus high stability, efficient windward sails mounted on an efficient windward hull form, the Makua Hine Honua of antiquity is, by present day analysis, an efficient sailing machine.

In fact, the oldest, (by 2,000 years), earliest double-hulled craft is a basic point of reference by which to judge subsequent double-hulled sailing craft.

With reference to the Spirit of Gaia , I have written “We loved our ship.”

Well, the Polynesians worshipped theirs.

Article continues below…

Fair winds to pioneering multihull designer James Wharram

Fair winds to free-spirited sailor and pioneering multihull designer James Wharram who passed away on 14 December, at the age

Sailing for All – the 1950s: a short history of yacht design

Although the post-war period was a time of scarcity – food rationing in the UK continued until 1954 – it…

British designer James Wharram’s round-the-world adventure on Spirit of Gaia

The morning breeze was just starting to fill in as we headed out of Port Vathi on board Ionian Spirit,…

‘Go faster’ lines

The double canoe and sailing the oceans was at the heart of their religious beliefs and social customs and attitudes.

According to the early European sailors, the finish and decoration of their ships “was of the highest standards.”

Polynesian hulls were a vivid polished black, red or yellow colour.

They were decorated at bows and sterns by highly elaborate, sacred carvings and had what we might call ‘go faster’ lines – not in paint but glittering inlays of mother of pearl shell, or, in some observed examples, sacred bird feathers, usually coloured red, fixed in a shimmering band around the hulls, just below the gunwales.

Heading upwind, swooping across the tradewind seas, such craft could easily sail distances between 1,500 to 2,000 miles in 10 days.

If they found no new land, they could easily turn around and run with the wind home.

Returning ships like these were described by the early Europeans as riding through the passes in the reefs at high speed towards the beaches.

Streamers from the sails were flying in the wind, people singing, drums beating, conch-shells blowing and naked girls dancing on the high bow and stern platforms.

Mediterranean idyll: anchored on the Costa Brava

For sailing in colder northern latitudes, as we did a western cruising catamaran designer needs to add some creature comforts to the basic Polynesian sailing machine:

For example:

Weather shelter
Private toilet facilities
Private sleeping places with double bunks
A communal dining table

In the first 25 years of western cruising catamaran development from 1960 to 1985, designers did succeed in developing catamarans with speeds of equal and above the fast monohulls, that provided sufficient weather shelter, western privacy standards, a fixed table with seats around, and most important, a high degree of static stability against capsize, at moderate cost unit.

Around 1985 a new trend in western catamaran development began.

This design trend encompasses the “Modern Performance Catamaran”.

It is hard to remember in the financially stringent 1990s, how the mid-1980s was a time of large amounts of surplus wealth, known as the ‘Yuppy Era’.

The non-heeling, wide beam of the raft-like catamaran provides a superb base for luxurious, spacious accommodation.

In theory, it only needed to join this accommodation to the high speeds of the ocean racing catamaran of the mid-1980s, and you had, for the requirements of the ‘Yuppy era’, an excellent package for marketing purposes.

A cruiser incorporating speed, high-tech and luxury.

Five star luxury

New designers came forward to develop this package.

They looked to computer technology for design inspiration, rather than to nature and man’s sailing history.

The Polynesians, if these people had ever heard of them, had no relevance at all to the modern catamaran design.

With computer-aided design they set out to optimise every aspect of the previous designed western catamaran: freeboard, internal volume, overall beam, mast height, sail area.

This optimised package was then styled, internally to the luxury of a five star hotel suite and externally to car and powerboat styling concepts to imply speed.

How far these new designs diverged in design aspects from the ethnic proportioned catamaran can be seen in the bottom of the graphic.

The shaded catamaran is a composite of five ‘modern performance’ catamarans.

Easily combined, they had remarkably similar freeboard, mast height and sail area proportions.

The modern performance catamaran has everything a modern, wealthy, soft, urban commuter could wish for.

For every two crew members there is an ensuite toilet and shower.

That means four toilets to eight people.

Double beds five feet wide (though I have notices that they often lack the ergonomics for a varied sex life).

They have water desalinators, washing machines, microwave ovens, deep freezers, quality stereos, television, electronic instruments to aeroplane cockpit display standards and so on.

In these aspects, they are certainly ‘modern.’

Spirit of Gaia specifications

Performance values

But how do they measure-up when it comes to performance.

Indeed, what is meant by the word performance ?

It is a very slippery word.

It is a modern advertising word and means different things to people of different attitudes.

To myself and many designers, it is always used together with other words, like performance in relation ‘to’.

The practical proven windward performance of the Spirit of Gaia is 45º off the true wind.

The theoretical windward performance of the ‘High Performance Bermudan Racing Rig’, as used on the composite ‘Modern Performance Catamaran’, is 3-5º closer to the wind, ie 40º off the true wind.

The Spirit of Gaia rig costs £11,000; the shown Bermudan rig was worked out at approximately £50,000.

So, in order to achieve a theoretical ability to sail 5º closer to the wind, you have to spend £40,000 more.

In cost efficiency, the shown Bermudan rig has very poor ‘performance’.

In stability values, the shown Bermudan rig has also poor performance.

The composite ‘Performance Catamaran’ with his high heeling rig, for safety in wind gusts, would need to be reefed at force5, whereas the narrow beamed Double Canoe Makua Hine Honua only needs reefing at force 6. (So does the Spirit of Gaia ).

The high profile (so high, they were last used in sailing ships of the 16th and 17th century) of the composite craft, will reduce windward performance in winds above force 5 to the point where engines become a vital component of the windward performance.

That is the reason, why the manufacturers of modern performance catamarans, always stress the power and quality of their engines when it comes to the hard sell.

(The 63ft Spirit of Gaia has two 9.9hp, four stroke Yamaha outboards).

The Polynesian Double Canoe is a product of evolutionary design logic for a fast craft using the minimum of materials and resources to sail the seas.

The modern performance catamaran is a consumer product which has evolved over a relatively short time period and is suitable only for a limited number of people.

It was mainly due to the high advertising budgets of the late 1980s, that the modern performance catamaran was projected as ‘state of the art’ in the cruising catamaran development.

In the more financially stringent 1990s, the numerical market base of wealthy yacht owners has narrowed considerably.

Can the present day ‘modern’ cruising catamaran concept survive on such a narrow market base?

What the ancient Polynesian Double Canoe designers have sown through the Spirit of Gaia is an opening into a ‘Post Modern’ school of catamaran design, that can move forward in the financially stringent 1990s, using the logical design principles of the Polynesian Double Canoe, improving its lack of accommodation and weather shelter within the constraints of evolutionary developed sailing ship design.

Author James Wharram, pictured in 2004

Conche conscious

It makes sense never to forget: cruising is more than hard efficiency or wealth display.

It is about the joy of sailing and companionship.

I remember a night in a quiet Mallorcan anchorage, sitting on deck, with our mixed crew of Japanese Shige, Canary Islander Sergio, and four exotic Spanish Catalan women, the fire flickering in the central deck fire-pit, stars overhead, the crew began to beat drums, tapping together pieces of fire log and clicking stones into a hypnotic primitive rhythm.

Someone began to blow the conche shell.

From the aft cabin pod, the call was sung into the night: ‘ Makua Hine Honua ‘.

Shige began to dance a primitive Okinawan dance.

Then, one of the Catalan women, dressed only in a sarong, stood up and also began to dance.

Her long hair swinging in a cloud around her, she approached me and drew me into her dance.

By the time you read this article, Shige, the Japanese, Sergio the Canary Islander, Dora, the Catalan, Hanneke, the Dutch, Ruther, the German, my son Jamie and me, the sea-gods willing, will be heading across the ocean on Spirit of Gaia , swimming and communicating with the dolphins, so much revered by the Polynesians.

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Elektrostal Geographical coordinates	Latitude: , Longitude: 55° 48′ 0″ North, 38° 27′ 0″ East
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23 July	03:16 - 11:32 - 19:49	02:24 - 20:40	01:00 - 22:04	01:00 - 01:00
24 July	03:17 - 11:32 - 19:47	02:26 - 20:38	01:04 - 22:00	01:00 - 01:00
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27 July	03:23 - 11:32 - 19:42	02:33 - 20:32	01:16 - 21:49	01:00 - 01:00
28 July	03:24 - 11:32 - 19:40	02:35 - 20:29	01:20 - 21:45	01:00 - 01:00
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	Located next to Noginskoye Highway in Electrostal, Apelsin Hotel offers comfortable rooms with free Wi-Fi. Free parking is available. The elegant rooms are air conditioned and feature a flat-screen satellite TV and fridge...	from
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Large double canoe catamaran with red sails, cruising the coast

The Pahi 63 is a tribal boat, suitable for expedition sailing and for larger groups of people to cruise or eco-charter. It is based on traditional Polynesian double canoe principles, is most suitable for use in warmer climates.

The deck/accommodation layout resembles a village, with a central public area including ‘well’ and (optional) ‘hearth’, surrounded by private cabins. This centre deck and the separate aft and fore deck areas give three large emotionally different spaces, enabling people to have hours in seeming solitude.

This deck layout combined with the 'Flexi Space' hull cabins (all with their own entrance) enables 8-10 people to live peacefully together for weeks at a time.

Building Method:	Ply/Glass/Epoxy/Laminate
Length Overall:	63'	19.20 m
Beam Overall:	28'	8.53 m
Waterline Length:	51'	15.5 m
Draft:	3' - 5'	0.9m - 1.5m
Weight:		8 tons
Loading capacity:		4.5 tons
Sail area:	1400 sqft	130 sqm
Building Time Estimate:	4000 hours

James compares Gaia’s design features with those of the charter Pahi 52. Spirit of Gaia's Wingsail Rig is tested by other catamaran sailors.

An article from Cruising Helmsman magazine about Mark Smaalders's cruise on Pahi 63 'Spirit of Gaia' from Cairns to Darwin. He discusses Gaia's characteristics from a traditional monohull sailor's point of view.

Nic Compton learns how the unorthodox British designer, James Wharram, took his family and fans around the world in his handcrafted catamaran, gaining some valuable lessons along the way.

IMAGES

British designer James Wharram’s round-the-world adventure on Spirit of
British designer James Wharram’s round-the-world adventure on Spirit of
Catamaran Man: James Wharram
Spirit of Gaia Renovation (Part 12)
Spirit of Gaia Renovation, 20 Years After Her Launching
Pahi 63. Spirit Of Gaia. Sailing Catamaran, Tall Ships, Sailboats

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Spirit of Discovery Spirit of the Carribean Jan:Feb 22
SAGA| Spirit of Discovery-Seatrial was postponed to the next day (Emden harbor) 05/06/2019
Spirit Of Discovery
Caribbean Spirit
Walk through of our new home Trimaran Spirit
Conversation with the Great Earth Spirit

COMMENTS

Spirit of Gaia Renovation, 20 Years After Her Launching
Spirit of Gaia renovation (Part 7) May 2016. 2016 is the year in which Gaia has finally been relaunched after 4 years of renovation work. Two months work this Springtime, sandwiched between hard work to build the new Mana 24 in Cornwall, gave us insufficient time to launch, so we returned for this in the Autumn.
Spirit of Gaia renovation, 20 years after her launching (Part 1)
Spirit of Gaia renovation, 20 years after her launching (Part 1) We sailed here (Messolonghi, Greece) last Sunday, four days ago. Before that we (four of us) spent one week in Trizonia, in the Gulf of Corinth getting Spirit of Gaia ready for the move. This meant lots of cleaning, and scraping the underwater ship to remove the encrustations of 5 ...
British designer James Wharram's round-the-world adventure on Spirit of
Nic Compton learns how the unorthodox British designer, James Wharram, took his family and fans around the world in his handcrafted catamaran, Spirit of Gaia, gaining some valuable lessons along the way. The morning breeze was just starting to fill in as we headed out of Port Vathi on board Ionian Spirit, an old Danish fishing boat converted ...
Spirit of Gaia Renovation (Part 11)
Launch Day. Spirit of Gaia's original launch date was May 16th 1992. We arranged the re-launch on her 26th birthday. Our friends Julius, Carli and their two sons joined us from Cornwall.
James Wharram Remembrance
James Wharram and Hanneke Boon stand on the bow of the 62′ (18.9m) Spirit of Gaia. Boon had a hand in design. and took over their business, which still maintains a high brand visibility. James Wharram, one of the last multihull pioneers from the postwar period, has embarked for the Great Perhaps. He died December 14, 2021, in Devoran, United ...
Catamaran Man: James Wharram
After the huge Spirit of Gaia was built in 1992, James reflected that it was all very well drawing boats that might cost $150,000 to build, but what about the ordinary sailor? The fruit of these thoughts was the launch of the Ethnic range of catamarans, starting with the 16ft Melanesia in 1997 pitched at a younger, poorer sailor.
James Wharram
This was the first west-to-east crossing of the Atlantic by catamaran or multihull. The story was told by Wharram in the 1969 book Two Girls Two Catamarans. [7] From 1973 Wharram was assisted by his co-designer Hanneke Boon. [8] In 1987-92 James and his partners built a new flagship, the 63-foot catamaran Spirit of Gaia, which they sailed into ...
James Wharram: Eight bells for the multihull pioneer
In May 1992, Wharram launched the 63ft Pahi, Spirit of Gaia, from his home on Restronguet Creek in Cornwall, sailing 32,000 miles around the world from England to Greece via the Pacific.
James Wharram: life and legacy of the iconic designer
Julien Girardot meets Hanneke Boon in Cornwall to discover the legend and legacy of pioneering catamaran designer James Wharram
JAMES WHARRAM: His New Autobiography
Dec. 18/2020: James Wharram, who first came to notice back in the 1950s after sailing a crude homemade catamaran across the Atlantic from England to Trinidad with two occasionally (and famously) unclad women, has cut a unique trail through the firmament of modern yacht design. He has always planted his flag far outside the boundaries of Western ...
Nomads of the wind
What the ancient Polynesian Double Canoe designers have sown through the Spirit of Gaia is an opening into a 'Post Modern' school of catamaran design, that can move forward in the financially stringent 1990s, using the logical design principles of the Polynesian Double Canoe, improving its lack of accommodation and weather shelter within ...
Spirit of Gaia renovation (Part 5)
August 2014 By Hanneke Boon I am writing this while quietly gliding along the Ionian Sea somewhere midway between Greece and Sicily. We are sailing aboard Largyalo, sister ship of Spirit of Gaia. See Part 4 Largyalo spent the winter with Gaia in Messolonghi marina. Petra and Bertie, her owners, worked many weeks this Spring getting her painted and doing many other jobs to get
James Wharram, A Lasting Legacy
He remained an adventurous and active sailor throughout his career and made numerous Atlantic crossings, plus a five-year circumnavigation with his partners Ruth Wharram and Hanneke Boon, their son Jamie and other crewmembers aboard the 63ft Spirit of Gaia.
James Wharram, world voyager in Polynesian catamarans whose passion for
Between 1987 and 1992, Wharram and Hanneke Boon built the 63-foot catamaran Spirit of Gaia, which, from 1994 to 1998 they and Ruth sailed into the Pacific and round the world, to study Indo ...
Elektrostal
Elektrostal metallurgical factory Elektrostal chemical-mechanical factory Elektrostal Heavy Engineering Works, JSC is a designer and manufacturer of equipment for producing seamless hot-rolled, cold-rolled and welded steel materials and metallurgical equipment. MSZ, also known as Elemash, Russia's largest producer of fuel rod assemblies for nuclear power plants, which are exported to many ...
About James Wharram Designs
Hanneke made two Atlantic catamaran crossings on Tehini when she first joined the team. Since then she has sailed thousands of ocean miles, including sailing round the world on Spirit of Gaia (1994-98), a voyage to Iceland (1999) and the 4000Nm Lapita Voyage (2008-09), when she skippered 'Lapita Anuta'.
The flag of Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia which I bought there
The flag of Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia which I bought there during my last visit Collection Add a Comment Sort by: Kirbyoto
Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia
Elektrostal Elektrostal Localisation : Country Russia, Oblast Moscow Oblast. Available Information : Geographical coordinates, Population, Area, Altitude, Weather and ...
Pahi Designs
Further Reading Spirit of Gaia Renovation Our flagship, Pahi 63 'Spirit of Gaia', was sailed hard for 15 years, including a round the world voyage. These blogs cover her maintenance work in detail. Design Discussion James compares Gaia's design features with those of the charter Pahi 52. Spirit of Gaia's Wingsail Rig is tested by other catamaran sailors. In The Spirit An article from ...
Zhukovsky International Airport in Zhukovsky, Moscow Oblast ...
Zhukovsky International Airport, formerly known as Ramenskoye Airport or Zhukovsky Airfield - international airport, located in Moscow Oblast, Russia 36 km southeast of central Moscow, in the town of Zhukovsky, a few kilometers southeast of the old Bykovo Airport. After its reconstruction in 2014-2016, Zhukovsky International Airport was officially opened on 30 May 2016.
Pahi 63 Self-Build Boat Plans
Design Discussion James compares Gaia's design features with those of the charter Pahi 52. Spirit of Gaia's Wingsail Rig is tested by other catamaran sailors. In The Spirit An article from Cruising Helmsman magazine about Mark Smaalders's cruise on Pahi 63 'Spirit of Gaia' from Cairns to Darwin.