kaimiloa catamaran

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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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Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 17, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Royal Hawaiian Navy was created solely as a result of King Kalākaua’s plan for a confederation of Polynesian nations. This was an era of kingdom-building, and alliances were in vogue.

King Kalākaua had been in office since 1874, overseeing his small independent country. Influenced by his recent trip around the world, he looked forward to developing alliances with other Polynesian countries, seeing Hawaii in the center position. By 1883, commissioners had visited the Gilbert Islands and the New Hebrides, without success. (Kauai Historical Society)

The High Commissioner was a special Hawaiian envoy tasked with traveling to the various island nations of the Pacific to enlist them into the confederation.

In anticipation of the High Commissioner’s transportation needs, the Hawaiian government purchased a three-masted steamship named the “Explorer.” The ship was refitted as a gunboat and armed with Gatling guns and cannons. The name “Explorer” was translated into Hawaiian and the ship was renamed the “Kaimiloa”. The ship’s captain was George E Gresley Jackson.

His Hawaiian Majesty’s Ship Kaimiloa was commissioned on March 28, 1887, for the naval service of the Kingdom and comprised the whole of the Hawaiian Navy. (ksbe)

HHMS Kaimiloa was the first and only ship of the Hawaiian Royal Navy. The ship was a 170-ton Explorer gunboat, made in Britain in 1871. King Kalākaua bought the ship for $20,000 and added the rigging.

It sailed from Hawaiʻi to Samoa and other Pacific islands in an effort by Kalākaua to form a confederation of Polynesian states to counteract European imperialism.

The mission was facing an uphill climb in its endeavors. Imperial Germany was already in discussion with Samoa, and both Britain and the United States were interested in the structure of power within the region.

This important region was of interest to most of the European powers – two years after this voyage, the warships of the United States, England, and Germany were all at anchor in Apia Bay, as Germany had asserted a right to possession. (Kauai Historical Society) Talks did not progress well.

Capt. Jackson was a former British naval officer, and more recently, the former head of a reform school. Members of the crew were former students. On board was John E Bush, as the King’s embassy; the crew was Hawaiian. (Kauai Historical Society)

With only one month of training, the youths were put to the test when the Kaimiloa was ordered to transport the Secretary of Foreign Affairs to Samoa. The ship departed Honolulu on May 18, 1887, and arrived in Samoa 29 days later. (ksbe)

Historical accounts indicate that from the beginning there were problems with the officers and the crew. Upon arrival in Samoa on June 15th, the festivities were problematic as well. (Kauai Historical Society)

Robert Louis Stevenson, then a resident of Samoa, is quoted regarding a reception at the Hawaii embassy: “Malietoa, always decent, withdrew at an early hour. By those that remained, all decency appears to have been forgotten.”

In the morning, he added, the revelers were aroused from a drunken stupor and sent home. King Malietoa is reported to have said: “If you came here to teach my people to drink, I wish you had stayed away”. (Kauai Historical Society)

Due to the music program which was in effect at the reform school, some of these crew members were also members of a military band. They were led by Charles Palikapu Kaleikoa.

While the Kaimiloa was in Samoa, the Cadet Band performed concerts in Apia, the capital city, and around Samoa. The Hawaiian Consul reported (August 23, 1887:) Her (Kaimiloa’s) cadet band also became popular and their concerts were an appreciated treat to the Samoans. (ksbe)

The Hawaiian Consul in Samoa, also impressed with their exemplary conduct, reported in a letter: “I must say a word in praise of the Reform School boys. It was a matter of surprise to me to observe how well they behaved on shore and aboard, and how well they performed their duties.” (ksbe)

Under the direction of Lorrin A Thurston, the Kaimiloa was recalled. She returned to Honolulu Harbor on September 23, 1887; this appears to be her only voyage for the state. (Kauai Historical Society)

The crew was disbanded and the ship was decommissioned. After this, Kaleikoa joined the Royal Hawaiian Band and continued to play in it until his retirement 40 years later and retired as assistant band leader. (ksbe)

After it was decommissioned, the Kaimiloa was still used as a quarantine ship, but in 1888 she was sold and used as a transportation vessel between the Hawaiian Islands.

For a while, she was used for interisland shipping, transporting coal and oil. After a period in dry dock, her engines were removed (and used to turn wheels in a sugar mill operation) and in 1910, the hull was burned. (Kauai Historical Society)

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James Wharram Designs

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Revival of sailing culture in remote island communities - the lapita voyage.

The second of two papers, delivered by James Wharram at the 'Early Man and the Ocean' conference, held at Norwegian Maritime Museum & Kontiki Museum, Oslo.

In 2008 the Kontiki Museum organised the first 'Early Man and the Ocean' Film Festival and Conference on maritime experimental archaeology. At this first conference, my design partner, Hanneke Boon, and I gave a paper on our proposed Lapita Voyage, in which we would be following the Lapita migration route into the Pacific on two traditional Pacific double canoes.

I am pleased to report back to this conference in 2010 that between Nov. 2008 and March 2009 we successfully completed this 4000Nm voyage.

Last Oct 2009 I should have been giving a presentation about the Lapita Voyage at ISBSA12 in Istanbul, unfortunately on that day I was being operated on for bowel cancer.

In haste we assembled our ideas, photos and film shot on the voyage into a DVD , which was shown at the ISBSA conference in Turkey, since then it has been through some further editing and it will be shown at this film festival.

It is from our experience of the Lapita Voyage and from other of our earlier experimental voyages that I will try to answer some of the many interesting issues raised by the organisers of this 2010 conference.

They wrote: "This conference is dedicated to how historical or experimental voyages influenced the society they were a part of, or the society with which they came in contact".

Following their suggestion, we have taken the social significance of Captain Cook's voyages in the Pacific as a starting point. This led us on an interesting journey to the Western women's sexual liberation movement of the 20th Century and why the Pacific canoe form craft were denigrated in the 19th Century by the missionaries and in the 20th Century by the New Zealander Andrew Sharp.

An important social aspect of Captain Cook's voyages was that he and his crews were Christians. As Christians, their social relationships and moral code were guided by 'the BOOK', i.e. the Bible including the Old Testament.

A prominent moral issue in the Old Testament (as well as in the Jewish the Torah and the Muslim Koran) is that a woman's sexuality and sight of her body, is in total control of her nearest male relative.

With this moral attitude accepted as the norm, on arrival in Tahiti, Cook and his crew were overwhelmed at finding a happy society where women were in control of their sexuality and bodies. In this society female nakedness was not a sin. When reports about this reached Europe, this concept worked like yeast in our Western Society.

The French Captain Bougainville, voyaging the Pacific at around the same time as Cook, not only commented on the freedom of women, but on having discovered 'Natural Man' living in a Golden Age. These ideas fed directly into the ideas of 'freedom' at the time of the French revolution, into French art - Gauguin, and later into the Green philosophy of present day Westerners. Nearly 200 years later when Thor Heyerdahl sailed his Kontiki voyage across the Pacific, the aspect of sexual freedom in Polynesian society still had a social impact. After the voyage, two of the crew members of the KonTiki again drew attention to the freedom of Pacific Island women.

Eric Hesselberg in his book of drawings 'KonTiki and I', published in 1950, showed bare breasted women taking the initiative in dance.

Bengt Danielson's widely read book 'Love in the South Seas' published in 1956, gave impetus to the women's liberation movement of that time. It described attitudes to female freedom, as previously reported by Captain Cook. These women's freedoms are now an accepted part of life for modern Western women.

In 1840 the London Missionary society, concerned over the 'nakedness and sex habits' of the people of the Pacific went out to the Pacific to 'convert the natives to Godly ways'. They found the canoe culture of the Polynesians was at the centre of the 'ungodly ways'. To destroy the root of the immoral society, they had to denigrate and destroy their boats.

It was through the missionaries that the concept that canoe craft were not seaworthy, began.

This attitude to the unseaworthiness of the Pacific Canoe Form Craft was still upheld a 100 years later by Andrew Sharp, a retired New Zealand civil servant, who in the mid 1950s wrote the book 'Ancient voyagers in the Pacific'.

In this book he wrote that the Pacific canoe craft could not sail to windward, waves would wash over the decks and the craft would break up in storm conditions. He also denied there was any evidence they could navigate over long distances. His opinion was that all migrations in the Pacific had been drift voyages.

In the same book he also denigrated the Viking voyages to Iceland, Greenland, claiming they could have been no more than accidental and that the Vinland voyage was a Myth.

So influential were the negative writings of Sharp that the book 'Polynesian Seafarers' by Edward Dodd, published in 1972, has nine references to Andrew Sharp's theories, which some people were still taking seriously.

In 1979 Ben Finney in his book 'Hokule'a, the Way to Tahiti' describes how in the late 1950s Andrew Sharp's theories spurred him on to try and prove him wrong.

What Dodd and Finney either did not realise, or failed to mention, is that the theories of Sharp in relation to sea-going canoe craft had already been refuted, before they were even written!

In 1937-39 a Frenchman, Eric de Bisschop , built a 38ft double canoe on Waikiki beach in Hawaii with hull lines based on a Tuamotuan voyaging canoe and sailed her successfully across the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans back to France, an incredible voyage of experimental archaeology, proving the seaworthiness and sailing abilities of the Polynesian double canoe. His book 'The voyage of the Kaimiloa' was published in England in 1940.

In 1943 the US Hydrographic Department published the widely distributed 'Raft Book' by Harold Gatty for downed wartime airmen in the Pacific. In this book he explains clearly how Polynesians navigated without instruments and how airmen afloat on a raft could trust this method to guide them to safety. He gained this information from Pacific islanders who still had this knowledge. Indeed this navigational knowledge is still there as can be seen in the Lapita Voyage film .

These two books, published more than 10 years before Sharp, refuted all his negative claims.

To many of you it is known that I was inspired by the voyages of Eric de Bisschop and Thor Heyerdahl, and myself made two experimental Atlantic voyages on double canoes from 1955 to 1959 to show to Western sailors that the Pacific canoe form craft was safe and seaworthy, and could become a suitable cruising craft for modern sailors. My voyages also refuted Andrew Sharp's theories.

My pioneering work in the offshore sailing capabilities of the Pacific double canoe, contributed to the development of the now widely accepted modern sailing craft - the catamaran.

The organisers of this conference have asked: "Could experimental voyages have influenced the technological choices for the future?" The development of the modern catamaran is proof that they have.

As a result of my pioneering Atlantic voyages on Canoe craft, I became a designer of such craft for Western people. Where I was unique from the other upcoming catamaran designers, was that I recognised the importance on the Stone Age design principles that made the Pacific canoe form craft so seaworthy, i.e. hullshapes that had innate windward ability without using keels or centreboards, flexibility in hull connections and low, flexible but windward rigs. The Lapita Voyage boats show how these principles actually worked.

Thousands of my designs have been self-built all over the world and many have made long ocean voyages, again and again proving the seaworthy design features of the canoe form craft of the Pacific.

These voyages also showed the innate wish of some of Mankind to lead a Nomadic lifestyle on the Sea. These modern 'Sea Nomads' and the voyages they achieved are an indication of how the early migration voyages in the Pacific could have been achieved by small family groups on moderate size boats. By the mid 1970s half a dozen had sailed across the Pacific and many more across the Atlantic.

While these first Western 'Sea Nomads' were crossing oceans on their Polynesian double canoes, a separate revival of Polynesian ships began in Hawaii in 1974.

The 'Polynesian Voyaging Society' was formed to give the Polynesian people of Hawaii a cultural heritage.

On the big island group of Hawaii the destructive influence of the missionaries and American Western culture had been the greatest and by the 1970s the original Polynesian population was a small minority and very little remained of their Polynesian culture.

The ships that had been there in Cook's days were gone, so was the knowledge of how they worked and sailed. The only canoes remaining were those used for paddling competitions and tourists.

To the people that joined the Polynesian Voyaging Society the double canoe was the heroic 'symbol' of their cultural heritage. Ben Finney has called this sailing development 'Cultural Identity Voyaging' and will be discussing it later.

However, the Pacific Ocean is not only inhabited by the Polynesians, who suffered the worst destruction of culture; there are the huge areas inhabited by Filipinos, Indonesians, Melanesians and Micronesians. Most of these people are still using canoe form craft for fishing or local transport and still carry the memories of their fathers or grandfather's sailing days.

We experienced this when we sailed through the Melanesian islands of Vanuatu on our 63ft double canoe Spirit of Gaia in 1996. We had many discussions with canoe-using people. We would sit under a sun shelter and discuss sail design, windward ability etc. with groups of old men, scratching drawings in the sand.

This voyage led to two things. First, a paper on our studies of the Canoe form craft of the Stone Age Sailors of the Indo Pacific Ocean continuum, published in 1997. It also led to a practical project, the design of a small and simple 16ft outrigger canoe ( Melanesia ) that could be built from 2 sheets of plywood, the first of a new range of ' Ethnic ' designs.

We designed it for one particular island in the Maskelynes, where the elders approached us with their dilemma that good sized 'canoe trees' were getting scarce and they would have to consider building in plywood.

We sent them the design and for 10 years heard no more. However hundreds of Western sailors worldwide, started building it.

Then 3 years ago, we were approached by a New Zealander, who was helping people in Vanuatu to set up a boatbuilding school. It turned out this was on the same island where we had discussed the plywood boatbuilding issue. The sending of the outrigger design had acted as a catalyst.

To help them, we donated one of our existing 28ft double canoe designs, they built it in just 6 weeks from a kit of materials prepared in New Zealand and immediately after launching set off with 20 people aboard!

In 2008, on our Lapita Voyage through the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea and the Solomons, the people we met easily identified with the Lapita Voyage expedition canoes. They saw canoes without engines, with simple rigging, a simple lifestyle, i.e. we cooked on deck on kerosene stoves as used by the locals, and above all we had no accompanying Western escort yacht to supply Western comforts & goodies and/or towing facilities.

This simplicity of the Lapita Voyage canoes always led to instant communication with people we met on the way, to discuss canoes and canoe sailing.

For example: On arrival in small Mono Island in the Solomons, in a discussion with a man called Roy (it turned out he had been a former Governor of the Western Province), he asked the question: "Could we help them with the design of an offshore sailing double canoe, smaller than the Lapita boats, to carry smoked tuna, for sale, across the 70Nm open sea to Bougainville?"

It had to be bigger than their traditional 18ft, open single outrigger paddling canoes and of course be able to sail. The people were well aware of the rising cost of oil and the problems associated with outboard motors.

We offered to develop such a design, adapting the simple house building materials and techniques we saw them using on the island. Importing Western boatbuilding materials is too costly for people living in remote islands, unless they are offered outside financial assistance.

In November 2009, the English yacht magazine Classic Boat, who under my urging have begun to feature Scandinavian boats, including the Seastallion, announced a design competition for an Eco fishing boat, under 10m length, no engine, so it would not fall under complex European rules for fishing craft.

Mindful of the promise to Roy of Mono Island, we designed a 27ft double canoe, which we call the Amatasi . Here is a model of the design. In July this year (2010) Classic Boat published the winner of their design competition, describing the winning boat, based on Stone Age design principles, as 'surprisingly radical'. They had chosen our Amatasi design.

We will build the prototype in Cornwall beginning in November. The building materials for this craft will cost around £3500 to £4000. The Cornwall Marine Network is supporting the project and Classic Boat will report its building progress.

With its wide deck area, shallow draft and simplicity this design is also suitable for youth groups, to build and go exploring with, or as a low cost family cruiser. Back in the Pacific the Tongan government department for fishing in Va'vau, on viewing the design are interested in its use for fishing expeditions of around 3 days.

From Micronesia we received an impassioned plea for the design in these words:

"We are interested in the Amatasi 27 as a starter project to reintroduce sailing into much of the outer islands of the Federal States of Micronesia. The inter-island transportation system is almost non-existent and we are losing people due to many, many reasons, but basically lack of transport, HELP by responding."

I hope, with the Lapita Voyage film being shown and this spoken presentation, we have contributed to the wishes of the organisers of this conference 'for the discussion on the social significance of experimental ocean voyages and could experimental voyages have influenced technological choices for the future.

'More fascinating by the day': Little-known history sails into Fort Myers

H is name may be all but lost to Fort Myers history, but Medford Kellum's brief part in his childhood home's past was colorful, even if that hometown never quite got around to making up its mind about him. Was he a laudable city father? A con man? A legendary sailor and fish hunter? A bigamist? A restless adventurer? All of the above?

On Nov. 9, Miami creator Cesar Becerra will be at the Collaboratory to discuss Kellum's legacy and the project that aims to bring his tall ship, the Kaimiloa, back into the public eye.

As Becerra describes his subject (he's got a Kaimiloa book and art project, among other things, in the works), "He's kind of a mystery but a fascinating character and he’s becoming more fascinating by the day." Born in Indiana 1874, Kellum came to the City of Palms after his father died in 1881.

Here's how News-Press alum and Tennessee writer Tracy Owens opened "Invisible Rogue," in Islandia Journal : "In the early 1920s Medford Ross Kellum seemed like the ultimate Fort Myers boy-made-good. So why did the town's newspaper have to issue a front-page plea for its citizens to welcome him and his family? What was the petty gossip that the people of Fort Myers were urged to rise up against? And, was there truth in it?"

Becerra will illuminate the man, his life, and especially, his extraordinary vessel, the Kaimiloa at the free Collaboratory event.

Key to Becerra's research into Kellum's Fort Myers chapters has been the archives at the Southwest Florida Historical Society's "Little Yellow House," which yielded photos, clippings and information about Kellum's Whiskey Creek mansion, now owned by Pason Gaddis, CEO of Hoffmann Media Group.

One of the treasures the archives yielded was a photo of a 13-year-old Kellum. Society volunteer Nancy Kilmartin helped research some of Kellum's backstory, which incudes rumors of alcoholism and swindling, but makes for fascinating history, she says.

A century ago next year, Kellum set out from Hawai'i on the 230-foot diesel yacht, its "four masts shooting up into the sky 13 stories tall," Becarra says. Accompanying him were a group of scientists from Honolulu's Bishop Museum, some of his children and a crew of tutors for the kids. The Kaimiloa was equipped with a radio station, a laboratory, an ice plant and a printing press, Owens reports. Plus, says Becerra, it boasted a film lab capable of processing movies.

The voyages of the Kaimiloa came at the end of the age of exploration, Becerra says. "I feel it was the last of the great explorations," he says. By the 1920s, not many frontiers remained, but the yacht did hold the distinction of being the first ship to send a short-wave radio signal across the ocean.

Becerra is fascinated by sheer grandiosity the Kaimiloa, and wants to help make it real for a 21st century audience.

"One of the dreams I have is to understand its immensity of the ship," he says. He has several ideas, ranging from finding a 13-foot building onto which an image could be projected, to building a skeletal model outlined with electroluminescent wire. "One of the translations of the name Kaimiloa is 'distant search,' " he says, "and that's what this has been."

As for the end of the ship, that's taken a while to emerge from the mists if history. Becerra says he's about 80 percent clear about what happened. He knows it was sold, renamed the Shenandoah III, and re-fitted with Asian furnishings. "When Med had it, it was a regal American ship," Becerra said. After that, it "was in an Oriental motif."

When a hurricane hit the Hong Kong Harbor in 1937, the boat was there, possibly being taken apart for scrap, he says. Originally, it was believed sunk, but "We've since learned, thanks to research by Stephan Schonberg (of the Southwest Florida Historical Society) that the ship was pushed up against Kowloon Beach," but whether it was re-righted or ever sailed again remains a mystery ... at least for now.

Cesar Becerra will speak about Medford Kellum and the Kaimiloa at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9 at the Collaboratory, 2031 Jackson St, Fort Myers. Call 239-274-5900.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: 'More fascinating by the day': Little-known history sails into Fort Myers

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KAIMILOA, d'Eric de Bisshop, réédition intégrale.

Bonjour à tous les amoureux de voile, d'aventure marines et de récits de mer, Tout d'abord, pour lever toute ambiguïté, je suis l'éditeur du livre et je viens ici vous annoncer sa republication. Ce livre a inspiré James Wharram notamment pour la conception de ses catamarans. Mais, avant tout, ce livre est le premier récit d'une aventure autour du monde en multicoque en 1937/38, de Hawaii à Cannes. Son auteur, Eric de Bisshop, est considéré comme le fondateur du multicoque de croisière. Le livre, qui a été un véritable best-seller à sa sortie en 1939, n'était plus disponible qu'en occasion chez les bouquinistes et sur certaines plateformes de e-commerce. Je le republie dans son intégralité avec quelques annexes. il fait 384 pages et est au format 14 x 21cm. Le livre vient juste de sortir de l'imprimerie. Actuellement, je fais tout pour qu'il soit en vente chez les libraires avant les fêtes de fin d'années (s'il y a des libraires parmi vous, faites vous connaître) . Je suis en phase de négociations avec certaines plateformes de vente en ligne. Il sera en vente sur certains stands du Salon Nautique de Paris... Je vous joins une photo de la nouvelle couverture et un extrait où l'auteur parle de la construction du Kaimiloa... Bonne lecture à tous.

Une fameuse idée pour une fameuse circumnavigation.

Ce livre est absolument génial. J'en ai un exemplaire dédicacé par l'auteur au moment de sa sortie mais il est tellement abimé que je n'ose plus l'ouvrir de peur de voir les pages se séparer. J'ai voulu en racheter un, mais on les trouve à plus de 40€ l'unité, ce qui fait franchement un peu cher pour un récit de mer. La nouvelle version est à combien?

Je suis ravi de cette nouvelle édition. J’avais moi-même envisagé de monter une boîte d’édition maritime l’année dernière mais j’ai renoncé. Donc, bravo et bon courage (il en faut dans l’édition aujourd’hui) Je vais acheter cette réédition…

Superbe! Merci!

One who seeks afar :)

Bonjour Moana, j’ai cherché à acheter le livre mais mon libraire m’a dit qu’il ne connaissais pas Comment et où je peux me procurer Kaimiloa ? Y a t’il un site internet?

Bonjour Merci pour cette nouvelle. Je vais commander l'ouvrage auprès du libraire indépendant de mon quartier car eux aussi on du courage pour continuer dans ce métier ;-) A la lecture du chapitre 3 mis à disposition dans le post initial, permettez moi, Moana, de regretter que la règle typographique française ne soit pas respectée. J'ai beaucoup de mal avec l'absence d'espace devant une double ponctuation. Philippe

Bonjour à tous, Tout d'abord, je dois remercier ceux qui m'ont fait un très bon accueil ici même (en particulier Tupperware ). Le livre est sorti il y a moins de 15 jours des presses de l'imprimerie. De nombreuses personnes m'ont contacté en MP car le livre n'est pas encore dans les rayons des libraires à mon grand désarroi. Cela est dû à la lenteur du référencement des centrales d'achat (que ce soit celles de grands groupes comme Amazon ou la FNAC ou bien celles de libraires indépendants) malgré le référencement du livre auprès du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque Nationale. Je passe donc mon temps à contacter moi-même les libraires par tel ou par mail, voire à me rendre sur place. La semaine prochaine par exemple, je vais à Paris pour poser des livres au Salon Nautic qui sera donc le premier lieu public où le livre sera disponible. Sinon, je réponds bien évidemment à ceux qui me contactent en MP et qui désireraient des livres pour les fêtes de fin d'année par exemple. Je vous remercie donc tous de la compréhension de ces petits retards inhérents au démarrage de toute nouvelle entreprise... Je vous tiendrai au courant des évolutions de la commercialisation de cet ouvrage où j'ai mis tout mon cœur de passionné de bateaux, et de multicoques en particulier. Très cordialement. Rémy.

Je l'ai terminé à l'instant. C'est vraiment un livre très intéressant. Je ne puis que vous inviter à le lire.

Phare du monde

Bye Bye la Corse !

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Khimki, Moscow Oblast, Russia

Khimki is a city located in Moscow Oblast, Russia, which is situated about 23 kilometers northwest of Moscow. It is one of the most significant industrial centers in the region and has a population of approximately 253,000 inhabitants as of 2021. The city is connected to Moscow by the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway and the Moscow Central Circle railway.

One of the most beautiful areas in Khimki is the historical center, which is known for its well-preserved buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries. The area is home to the City Hall and the City History Museum, as well as several beautiful parks and green spaces. The housing prices in this area are on the higher end due to the historic charm and central location. The average price for a one-bedroom apartment in the historical center is around 50,000 rubles (about $675) per month. The transportation is convenient with several bus and minibus routes connecting the area to the rest of the city. This area is generally safe, with low crime rates.

Another area worth mentioning is the recently developed residential district of Yaroslavsky. It is located in the eastern part of the city and is known for its modern and comfortable living spaces. The area has a large park with several playgrounds, bike paths, and sports fields. The housing prices in this area are more affordable compared to the historical center, with the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment being around 30,000 rubles (about $400) per month. The transportation is also convenient, with several bus routes connecting the area to the rest of the city. The safety of this area is also high, with low crime rates.

The Sokolniki neighborhood is also a popular residential area in Khimki. It is located in the southwestern part of the city and is known for its green spaces, which include several parks and forests. The housing prices in this area are slightly higher than in Yaroslavsky, with the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment being around 35,000 rubles (about $470) per month. The transportation is convenient, with several bus and minibus routes connecting the area to the rest of the city. The safety of this area is also high, with low crime rates.

Khimki is known for its diverse industry, which includes metalworking, chemicals, and construction materials. The city has several large industrial plants, such as the Sheremetyevo International Airport, which is one of the busiest airports in Russia. The city also has several shopping centers and entertainment complexes, such as the MEGA Khimki Mall, which is one of the largest malls in the region.

The people of Khimki are known for their love of sports, with football, ice hockey, and basketball being the most popular. The city has several sports clubs, such as the Khimki Basketball Club, which is one of the most successful basketball teams in Russia. The city also has several well-known public figures, such as the musician and composer Andrey Makarevich, who is known for his work with the band Mashina Vremeni.

Khimki is a beautiful city with a rich history and culture. The city has several outstanding areas, each with its own unique charm and character. The housing prices in the city are generally affordable, and the transportation is convenient, making it a great place to live. The city is known for its diverse industry, sports, and entertainment options, making it a great place to work and play.