James Wharram

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James Wharram (born May 15, 1928 in Manchester ) is a pioneer in catamaran construction. In 1953, he designed his first ocean-going catamaran , the almost eight-meter-long TANGAROA, thus initiating the start of cruising on catamarans.

Services

James Wharram designed his first ocean-going catamaran in 1953, the TANGAROA, which is almost eight meters long. On it he sailed with Ruth Merseburger and Jutta Schulze-Rohnhof from Falmouth to Trinidad, where the 12 meter long RONGO was created with the help of Bernard Moitessier . A pioneering transatlantic passage on the RONGO (1959) from New York to Ireland followed. This was the first time that an ocean passage from west to east was sailed with a catamaran. Wharram described the experience of the crossing in the book "Two Girls Two Catamarans".

Together with Hanneke Boon , he circumnavigated the world from 1995 to 1998 in their 63 'long catamaran SPIRIT OF GAIA.

Following the example of the Polynesian two-hull boats, he designed seaworthy catamarans with an open bridge deck, the hulls of which are flexibly but securely fixed in the Polynesian style with lines or straps and which can be effectively built with simple, inexpensive materials. His designs follow the motto: keep it simple! Boat building plywood in combination with epoxy is mostly used as building material. The main sail is designed as a treeless gaff. The interior is multifunctional, designed according to the famous Bauhaus motto "less is more". The result is an easy-to-use, seaworthy, yet affordable boat.

Pahi 63, Wharram self-build catamaran, view to the bow, ship length: 19.2 m

His philosophy of sailing and the peculiarities of the unique Wharram design are particularly valued in DIY circles around the world.

Tiki 26, Wharram self-build catamaran off Usedom, ship length: 7.9 m

In 2008, the year of his 80th birthday, he started his project "Lapita Voyage" together with Klaus Hympendahl and Hanneke Boon. For this purpose, two eleven-meter double canoes were built and sailed 4,000 miles on a route from the Philippines to the Solomon Islands Anuta and Tikopia without modern navigation and handed over to the locals.

The concept of double hull and outrigger boats is several thousand years old. In the Pacific and Indian Oceans, their builders made legendary ocean voyages in 20–30 meter long double canoes. The smaller Proas were used for shorter distances within the lagoons. Because of the many reef passages, its shallow draft was very beneficial.

Pahi 63, Wharram self-build catamaran, view of rigging, ship length: 19.2 m

James Wharram has sold more than 10,000 of his blueprints worldwide and hundreds of Wharram catamarans 7 to 20 meters in length have been built by builders or shipyards. One reason for this success is that James Wharram is a practitioner as a designer and boat builder. He has personally worked on many of his prototypes and strives to bring his methods of construction to their simplest form.

Together with designer and partner Hanneke Boon, he developed new technologies in boat building and groundbreaking construction methods. He is represented with lectures at international marine archeology conferences. Recently, he has been a member of the Royal Geographical Society was awarded the "Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society" for his pioneering work in the field of shipbuilding.

literature

  • Wharram, James: Two girls, two catamarans. Ed. Crociera Totale, Bologna 2001 ISBN 88-87210-04-7
  • Wharram, James: Two girls, two catamarans. Nusser-Yachtbau, Bibertal 2005 ISBN 3-00-015444-2
  • Wharram, James: Two girls, two catamarans. Palstek, Hamburg 2006 ISBN 3-931617-24-6
  • Wharram, James: The Wharram Design Book. Building Yourself A Modern Sea-Going Polynesian Catamaran
  • Wharram, James: Keep multihulls simple

Honors

  • 2008 At the Mystic Museum Wooden Boatshow, the Wooden Boat Magazine honors James Wharram as a multihull pioneer.
  • 2009 Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
  • 2012 Award of Merit from the Ocean Cruising Club

Memberships

  • 1967 - present: British Marine Industries Federation (BMIF).
  • 1968 - today: Polynesian Catamaran Association (PCA). Founder member.
  • 1968 - 1975 Multihull Offshore Cruising and Racing Association (MOCRA). Founder committee member.
  • 1968-1978 Little Ship Club.
  • 1973 - today: Royal Yachting Association (RYA), private member.
  • 1977 - 1991 Committee member of the RYA Cruising Committee
  • 1992 - present: Andean Explorer's Club. Honorary member.
  • 1996 - today: Roskilde Vikingship Museum friends.
  • 2000 - present: Cruising Association. Overseas member.
  • 2005 - today: Association of Yachting Historians.
  • 2009 - today: Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Web links

Commons : James Wharram  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Participation in conferences

  • History and Problems of Design of Modern Multihulls. 1977. Fifth Symposium on Developments of Interest to Yacht Architecture, HISWA, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
  • Cruising Multihulls, 1978, RYA Cruising Symposium.
  • Multis are more traditional than deep-Keel Yachts. 1980. Multihull Symposium, Plymouth, UK.
  • Appropriate Technology in catamaran Design and construction. 1988. European Multihull Symposium, Netherlands.
  • An Analysis of Self-Built Catamarans in the overall Development of Cruising Catamarans. 1989. MOCRA International Symposium, Exeter, UK.
  • The Gaia Project, 1990. Second Dolphin and Whale Conference, Australia.
  • The Spirit of Gaia, 1992. Third Dolphin and Whale Conference, Hawaii.
  • European Double Hulled Canoes and The Archeology of Viking Ships, 1996. Waka Moana Symposium, Auckland, New Zealand.
  • Yacht Building and Yacht Charter in Indonesia, 2001, ITS Small Craft and Design Conference, Surabaya, Indonesia.
  • The Pacific Migrations by Canoe Form Craft, 2003, ISBSA10 Roskilde, Denmark.
  • 'Lapita Voyage - recreating the migration route of the proto Polynesians', 2008, 'Early Man and the Ocean' Conference, Norwegian Maritime Museum & Kontiki Museum, Oslo.

Other articles & publications

  • Ocean-going catamarans. 1962. Ciba Technical Notes 231, Cambridge, UK
  • Tehini. October 1970, Yachting Monthly, UK. Seminal article on design approach.
  • The stable multihull. 1976. (Researched for 1st World Multihull Symposium, Toronto.)
  • The Sailing Community. 1978, Wooden Boat, USA, Prize-winning proposal for 'Waterborne International Communities'.
  • Catamaran Stability - Figures, Facts and Fictions. 1991. Practical Boat Owner, UK. Also published in several other countries.
  • Nomads of the Wind. October 1994. Practical Boat Owner, UK. Analysis of the sailing qualities of the Polynesian Double Canoe.
  • Going Dutch: The Tiki Wing Sail Rig. 1998, Practical Boat Owner, UK. Also published in several other countries, including Australia, Holland and France.
  • Lessons from the Stone Age Sailors, A Study of Canoe Form Craft in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.
  • 'Vikings go Home', Nov. 2008. Classic Boat, UK. (Article about voyage of the 100ft Vikingship reconstruction 'Seastallion' from Dublin to Denmark).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "James Wharram: Celestial Adventurer or Visionary Architect?" , Philippe Echelle, Multihulls World
  2. ↑ Cornwall Information 2008 about James Wharram (English)
  3. ↑ Interactive offer of an interview on ZDF with Klaus-Hympendahl  in the ZDFmediathek , accessed on January 30, 2014. (offline)
  4. ^ Homepage Lapita-Voyage, the Help Tikopia and Anuta eV association. Archived from the original on April 7, 2016 ; accessed on February 16, 2016 .
  5. ^ OCC award of merit winners . Archived from the original on November 9, 2016. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oceancruisingclub.org
personal data
SURNAME Wharram, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British pioneer in catamaran construction
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Manchester