wharram catamaran facebook

Did You Know That We Offer Contract to Closing Services? Click Here to Find Out More.

Need Marine Financing? Apply Here With Our Partner, First Approval Source

• Catamaran Interviews
• Catamaran Reviews
• Buying Advice
• Selling Advice
• Woods Design Advice
• Americat 3014
• Balance 526
• Bali 40 Catspace
• Beneteau Blue II
• Broadblue 346
• Broadblue 38 Prestige
• Broadblue 385
• Broadblue 435
• Broadblue 46
• Catalac 10M
• Catalac 11M
• Catalac 12M
• Catalac 900
• Catana 42 S
• Chris White 48 Voyager
• Chris White 55
• Corsair F28 R
• De Villiers
• Dolphin 460
• Endeavour 30
• Endeavour 35 Victory
• Endeavour 36
• Endeavour 44
• Endeavour 44 TrawlerCat
• Fortuna 36 Island Spirit
• Fortuna 401 Island Spirit
• FP 32 Maldives
• FP 35 Tobago
• FP 37 Antigua
• FP 38 Athena
• FP 39 Fidji
• FP 40 Lavezzi
• FP 40 Lucia
• FP 40 Summerland MY
• FP 41 Lipari
• FP 42 Astrea
• FP 42 Venezia
• FP 43 Belize
• FP 44 Helia
• FP 44 Orana
• FP 46 Bahia
• FP 46 Casamance
• FP 48 Salina
• FP 56 Marquises
• FP 57 Sanya
• FP 60 Eleuthera
• FP Saona 47
• Gemini 3000
• Gemini 3200
• Gemini 3400
• Grainger 420 Mystery Cove
• Hirondelle 7M
• Lagoon 37 TPI
• Lagoon 42 TPI
• Lagoon 43 PC
• Leopard 39 PowerCat
• Leopard 45 Classic
• Leopard 47 PowerCat
• Leopard 51 PowerCat
• Leopard 53 PowerCat
• Maine Cat 30
• Maine Cat 41
• Matrix 450 Vision
• Matrix 760 Silhouette
• Maverick 400
• Maverick 420
• Maverick 440
• Nautitech 40
• Nautitech 442
• Nautitech 46 Open
• Nautitech 47
• Outremer 40
• Outremer 45
• Outremer 50 Standard
• Outremer 55
• Privilege 37
• Privilege 39
• Privilege 42
• Privilege 43
• Privilege 435
• Privilege 45
• Privilege 465
• Privilege 48 Transcat
• Privilege 482
• Privilege Serie 5
• Prout 31 Quest
• Prout 33 Quest
• Prout 34 Event
• Prout 35 Snowgoose
• Prout 37 Snowgoose
• Prout 37 Snowgoose Elite
• Prout 38 Manta
• Prout 39 Escale
• Royal Cape 45
• Royal Cape 530 Majestic
• Royal Cape Majestic 500
• Sailcraft 30 Iroquois
• Sailcraft 32 Comanche
• Sailcraft 35 Cherokee
• Sailcraft 41 Apache
• Sailcraft 44 Apache
• Wildcat 350
• Seawind 1000
• Seawind 1160
• Seawind 1200
• Seawind 1260
• Seawind 1600
• Solaris 36 Sunrise
• Solaris 36 Sunstar
• St Francis 44
• St Francis 48
• St Francis 50
• Stealth 11.8
• Heavenly Twins 26
• Ocean Twins 38
• Voyage 380 Maxim
• Voyage 400 Norseman
• Voyage 430 Norseman
• Voyage 450 Cabriolet
• Voyage 47 Mayotte
• Wharram 38 Tiki
• AMI 320 Renaissance
• Woods 22 Wizard
• Woods 35 Banshee
• Woods 35 Flica
• Woods 36 Scylla
• Woods 36 Vardo
• Woods 38 Transit
• Woods 40 Meander
• Xquisite X5
• Xquisite X5+

Interview with Hanneke Boon of Wharram Catamarans

• Post author By Diane Selkirk
• Post date August 9, 2023
• 5 Comments on Interview with Hanneke Boon of Wharram Catamarans

Diane interviews Hanneke Boon who is a long time partner of James Wharram and designer of Wharram. She gives a historical recount since the 1938’s of catamaran design and sailing! She talks about her opinion of modern cruising catamarans and how Wharrams are different and really better for cruising.

She and the team at Wharram are still busy selling plans to people all over the world!

• Personal:  [email protected]
• Office: [email protected]
• Website:  www.wharram.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/JamesWharramDesigns
• Websites on canoe project for Tikopia and Anuta:  www.lapitavoyage.org   

Wharram’s book of memoirs ‘People of the Sea’: www.wharram.com/shop/books/people-of-the-sea

Please enjoy the recorded interview available below and the transcript with many photos.

Today, we’re really happy to be here speaking to Hanneke Boon, head of James Wharram Designs. Hanneke also co-designed the boats alongside the legendary multihull pioneer and designer, James Wharram. Hanneke, welcome. I’m wondering if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, and your role at Wharram.

I’ve spent most of my life with James, actually. I first met him when I was just 14. My father was interested in his boats, this was in the 60s, when James had fairly recently done his voyages. He’d started selling designs in North Wales and my father wanted to go and meet this unusual character he’d read about. We ended up on the beach where James was living on his catamaran “Rongo,” which he did his first crossings on.

We bought a set of plans for a 22-footer and then we built that in Holland. I’m originally from the Netherlands. We built that boat over about a year, and then we got to know James and Ruth very well during this period. We did further trips to England to help them build their previous boat. It was a 51-footer called “Tehini.” That was being built out in the open with hand trowels in North Wales. This was 1968-69. In fact, a lovely film on YouTube about it, people can find out on our channel.

Can you tell me the name of the film?

It’s called “The Building of Tehini.”

Okay, great!

“The Building and the Sailing of Tehini.” It’s on the James Wharram Designs YouTube channel.

So we’re up to ’69. Keep going with your story, it’s fascinating.

So we got to know James. I got to know him more, and a few years later, somehow I ended up sailing across the Atlantic on “Tehini.” It was James, Ruth, and several other girls that were part of the crew at the time, and that’s where it all started. I’ll keep trying to keep it brief.

From the beginning I started doing drawing work. [Didn’t] really like the way I was drawing. In fact the Hinemoa plans, which are 23-foot or whatever you’ve got, I drew when I was 19 or something. That was my first set of plans. From then, I’ve gone onwards drawing plans. Of course, more and more, we did a lot of design work together. We design, we work on, we have a sort of brainstorm between us. I would be sketching, and we would be having ideas, and then that evolved into a new design. That’s how it’s gone for years.

In the ’80s, we started building a new boat. We built this 63-foot “Spirit of Gaia,” and we sail that around the world. I still got this boat, and I’m still sailing it. It’s in the Mediterranean at the moment. Over all the years, we’ve done lots of different design projects, and different designs. We’ve sold over 10,000 sets of plans over all those years. There’s hundreds of these boats everywhere.

Now, with social media, there’s a huge following actually. Facebook groups, people talking about Wharram Catamarans quite a lot. Now they are being bought second-hand. There’s old ones, classics, 40-something, even 50-year-old boats that are being bought by people. Then they’re lovingly trying to restoring them back into life.

Oh, that sounds amazing! I think we should probably go back a little bit then, and learn Can you tell us a little bit about where the designs came from, and who James was?

James, back in the ’50s, he read a book called, “The Voyage of the Kaimiloa” about a Frenchman called Eric de Bisschop. Eric de Bisschop, just before the war, had been sailing in the Pacific on a Chinese junk, trying to work. He was very interested in Polynesian migrations, and he was studying the ocean currents and all sorts of things, making lots of notes. Unfortunately, he wrecked his junk in Hawaii, and they were starving on board because they had been held up in the Marshall Islands by the Japanese at the time. It was quite a story.

So he ended up there, and instead of building another junk, he built a double canoe on the beach in Hawaii. Then he sailed his boat together with his male companion, a Frenchman, all the way to France. Through the Pacific, Indian Oceans, went around the Cape of Good Hope, and all the way into the Med to Toulon, which was an incredible voyage. It showed how good a double canoe could sail. It wasn’t totally Polynesian, the hulls were inspired by Polynesian boats, but he put a junk sail on it, and those other junk elements because he was used to them.

Anyway, James read this book in his teens, ran out of the library, was very much inspired by it. Then Thor Heyerdahl came up with his Kon-Tiki voyage, who claimed that the Polynesians must have come from South America because of the ocean currents and the prevailing winds. But having read the Eric de Bisschop book, James was convinced that was not true, and the Eric de Bisschop theory is often coming out of Southeast Asia were correct, which they were of course. So he decided he wanted to go ocean sailing. The easiest for him to build was a double canoe. It’s a very small budget, he built a 23-foot, 6-inch double canoe.

Did the concept of catamaran even really exist at that point?

Not really, no. There had been a Frenchman that built a steel-heavy sort of catamaran and sailed across the Atlantic. It was all a bit of a disaster story. But there were the knowledge of the double canoes of the Pacific, the Polynesian boats. There was a book published called “Canoes of Oceania” by the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, [around] 1938-39, and that was in the library. James studied that quite deeply when he was trying to design his boat, also went to museums studied models.

Anyway, with that boat, they managed to sail from England to Trinidad. While the boat was too small, they suffered from Teredo worms (shipworms). It was built in softwoods, so they built a 40-foot plywood catamaran of “Rongo,” and then sailed that up to New York [in] 1959. From New York to England, that was the first west-to-east crossing by any multihull and that’s what they did. A few years later, they actually did a whole other Atlantic circuit. In fact, that was also still the only catamaran across the Atlantic that way. So that was all in ’61.

That’s remarkable!

But they want to sail around the world. Very sadly, James’s other partner, he was living with two German girls/women at the time, she died. It was a terrible shock to them, and it was one crew member missing, that decided not to sail into the Pacific.

He ended up settling down in Wales. At some point, people asked for a design, “can you design me a boat like yours?” That’s where it all took off, in 1965. He started designing different sized boats, and he developed some very good building techniques at that time. Because he wanted always simplicity, he was not in particular experienced or a woodworker, so he always looked for simple methods.

He was quite a bit inspired by an American book actually, “Boat Building in Your Backyard,” which he’d been given a long time ago by an American woman. Because in America, they built a lot of quite simple Dory-style boats and things. James developed a very interesting method, which was building the hulls upside down, and building a plywood backbone, and then slotting bulkheads onto it. That way, people could get the accurate shape of a boat without difficult lofting, or all this leveling and built. You didn’t have to build a heavy building base, and that makes a huge difference. In fact, all our designs are still built in that method. I mean, we’ve evolved it, and made it more sophisticated, but we still use that upside-down backbone and bulkhead methods, and it works extremely well.

Let’s talk a little bit about design. In many ways, I would assume James is considered sort of the father of modern catamarans.

He’s certainly considered that, and he is really, because I think in the early days, the majority of ocean-going catamarans were Wharram designs. Now the Lagoons have taken over.

It would be very interesting to have a coffee with you to see what you think of modern catamarans.

You’d be a great admirer of them, I’m afraid!

No! Wharrams are certainly beautiful! In many ways, compared to what’s happened, the Wharram designs have evolved quite slowly. Why is that?

Parallel, but very differently. We’ve always kept with the basic Polynesian principles of having separate hulls, having flexibility in the hull structure, and the general simplicity. The whole philosophy behind it is that you have a a sailing boat, not a motorboat. You can have motors, but the boat should be a good ocean sailing boat. That’s what the basis is behind the design.

But we always keep simple, and we try to avoid a lot of hardware and complications. All our designs now are basically ply-epoxy built, which is an easy way for self builders to build. But the plans are incredibly detailed, so we need to build the right step-by-step through the whole process of how to build it. They don’t have to have technical drawing knowledge, how to read them. It’s all illustrative. I’ve always been good at drawing, so I’m an illustrative artist as well as a technical drawer. Our plans all consist of some measurement drawings, big drawings with measurements which you need. Then a whole book, like a sketchbook of plans, instructions, and they’re all 3D drawings with one, two, three, four, follow the text around it.

I’ve seen a few photos they look like a work of art.

I don’t use a computer to draw. I draw by hand.

How have the designs evolved from the early ones?

With the introduction of epoxy. You see, epoxies came in around about 1980. The Gougeon’s were working on the middle-late ’70s, and we met them at the time. In fact they listened to one of their talks back in ’76, it was a big conference in Toronto. There’s all the multihull designers there, and the Gougeon’s were there. James was quite intrigued by it, but a little bit skeptical when they said it was wood epoxy’s saturation technique. The saturation bits. The question then, how deep does it saturate? In fact it’s more of a coating than a saturation, but that’s beside the point.

The whole system of using epoxy gave his whole new method by using epoxy fillets. The woodworking skills can be reduced. You don’t have to have absolute accurate jointing and everything, because the epoxy will take care of that. As long as you teach people how to use the epoxy correctly. The whole coating of all the wood and the glassing on the outside makes the boat much more durable than the earlier ones were, because your sealing seals up. It allowed us to to do a lot more sophisticated design work. It was all in plywood, cutting it and fitting together this epoxy.

We started in 1981 with stitching glue boats. We’ve got our whole Tiki range in stitch-and-glue was the small ones. Again, that really made us focus on how to make boat buildings really simple. Our smaller Tikis, the stitch-and-glue ones are really very simple to build and consistent in simplicity. The same technique is used throughout, and not at the end, suddenly gets complicated. It can happen.

We didn’t want to make it suddenly complicated when they came to masts and other things. That’s all been part of it and it was very much James was behind it. That’s what he wanted. He wanted it consistently simple techniques and throughout. Then these stickies just evolved bigger and bigger, and every time you go big and you have to work out different ways of doing it. So you get the correct strength, the right balance. That’s what we worked on. I did a lot of work on that kind of thing with working out techniques of how to achieve it easy and simple.

We encountered many Wharram catamarans in harbors around the world, and we saw them in the harbors and they’re always very beautiful to look at, but I always wondered what they were like to sail?

Well, they slipped through the water very easy actually, because we’ve always had slim hulls. All our hulls are at least 11or 12-to-1 beam:length ratio on the water line. Actually, a lot of these modern catamarans say about 8-to-1, they’re much fatter. If you want them to go fast, you’ve got to put a lot of sail on it. Whereas our boats will sail, and it’s very little sail, actually. They’re weak sails. Imagine you’ve got the force forward on our boat we can reduce the sail here to nearly half of it and not lose much speed.

We never aim for some of these really high speeds, but our 63-footer will sail happy at 9-10 knots. The moment you’ve got more wind, it will sail down to half the sail area. It’s a lovely passage-making boat. Because they flex, they go with the waves, and they’re fairly low freeboard, so you’re much more connected to the ocean through the boat. They’re more simple. Some people say they’re spartan, which they may be, but it’s that simplicity that attracts a lot of our builders actually.

Just seeing all this kind of complication and people having everything they have at home on their boats, and we say “I don’t want that, I want to sail, I wanted to be simple, I don’t want things to go wrong.” They choose the Wharram catamarans for that reason.

Tell me a little bit more about the people who choose the cats. I know you talked about that, there’s a real resurgence and interest, and it sounds like it’s the people looking for simplicity.

Yes, definitely. It’s a kind of way of life as well as a type of boat. Of course our boats have a kind of timeless look. We’ve not gone with fashion of boat fashions. Now, fashions every year, you need a new model, like cars. We haven’t gone that way. We stick because the boats are based on a traditional craft from the past. The historic craft, we stayed natural, it was in traditional lines. Sheer lines, overhangs, and things like that, which we feel work.

Our boats still have overhangs of the bows now, all the other cutting ones. Up and down, straight bows, or even retro bows, that’s now the fashion. That’s what you’ve got to have. Whereas, we don’t believe in them.

The other thing of course, we’ve always stuck with V-towers, V cross-section, slide carefully. I still feel that it’s got canoe stern, so even if you load them, you’ll never drag a transom wave behind the boat. They slip really through the water well actually, because they kind of slice the ocean open, there’s a V. Whereas if you’ve got a big round, you kind of push it downwards, and I think that has a different effect on the water.

Of course a V, the lower you go below the water, the slimmer the hull gets. If you have a beam-length ratio of 12-to-1 on the actual sea level water line every time you go down, say six inches, the water line is slimmer, and slimmer, and slimmer. So at the bottom, you’re cutting it with a knife. We don’t need any keels or daggerboards as a result. All the people that sail our boats swear by them, others not.

Right! It’s a matter of sailing them. You’ve talked about new builders who are finding the old boats and redoing them. What kind of people are doing them? Is it a cross-section?

I don’t know, there are all sorts of people that are rebuilding boats. Actually, one interesting thing that’s been happening, there’s been a number of women buying old Wharram catamarans and doing them up. In fact there’s a very large following on Instagram for a woman called Kiana, and her Instagram account is “Women in the Wind.” She got a 50-year old Wharram catamaran and has now sailed it four times across the Atlantic, three of them mostly single-handed, and once with two other women. They report on that a lot and, and they do some beautiful romantic reporting actually. I mean, the boat is simple and it leaks, and it’s rigged with natural spars made from trees, because it was all helped with a friend.

It’s a fascinating Swiss chap called Hans Clark who built a really genuine ethnic double canoe in West Africa. He’s been sailing around the Atlantic now for many years with it. This woman met him and he’s helped her turn this boat into a a new-style boat, very simple. A rig that’s kind of just a rebuilt rig from from older sails, with trees at spars. It’s beautiful, and everything’s lashed. There’s been now a number of women that have been doing that too.

It must be very gratifying to see these 50-year old boats still having such a beautiful life.

It’s also a lifestyle people just love, that basic connection with the ocean. None of this trying to bring your hotel room on the sea. Really connecting with it in a basic way, like people used to sail many years ago.

Then there’s other people. There’s a young Englishman at the moment who’s found a 42-footer by 42 in Holland, which he managed to buy. Somebody built it beautifully actually, but never finished it. It was in the water, it was two hulls, and beams, and some windows that weren’t really fitted on. They’d been lying there for, seven or eight years, nine years, filling with water. It looked a mess. It was filthy, and horrible, and he and I had to look at it over WhatsApp. I said to him, that boat looks well built, buy it. He bought it, for 2000 Euros only, which is the price for a plan.

Everybody was sort of like, “Bob, what’s he buying?” Because then he started cleaning, with all the cleaning, and as the dirt came off, a rather beautiful boat came out from underneath the filth. The bilges had been full of water, but because they were so well sealed with epoxy, which shows again, no rot down there at all. There’s only rough patches because these windows weren’t put in properly, and the hulls were draught. Otherwise, the boat is in very good order.

It sounds like the office is still very active with you there. Is it mainly people getting in touch with you for information about boats, or are people still buying new plans?

Buying plans and building new boats. I’ve got some really good people working in the office here. I’ve got a woman who sends out all the plans. I’ve got a man who does a website, who lives on site here. I’ve got now a lovely young woman called Tori who’s now taking on the Instagram and more social media aspects of it. So it works really well. I’ve actually been going off sailing quite a bit.

Oh! Good for you!

James died 18 months ago about. After, I was offered to sail across the Atlantic with some German friends who’ve got a sister ship to my own, and I took that offer up. That was spring last year. [In] August, sailing the Atlantic. Then in the autumn we got our “Spirit of Gaia” and sailed it from Greece to Sicily. This springtime, I sailed it from Sicily to Ibiza, in the Mediterranean. In September, I want to carry on the voyage to Portugal, which is why I’m aiming for. I want to do an all-woman sail myself, so I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve already got probably two or three, they’re not quite certain yet.

Sounds remarkable! Well, thank you Hanneke, I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you, and it sounds like James has a beautiful legacy. Can you let me know how people can reach you?

First of all, our website is Wharram.com . W-H-A-R-R-A-M.com. We have a YouTube channel as well, called James Wharram Designs. That can all be found via the website. James and I wrote a book autobiography not so long ago, which was published two years ago, three years ago. That gives our whole life story and everything about boat designs that we built, and how we sailed around the world, etc. There’s a lot of YouTube videos can be found through our website, again. Once you’re in the website, you can read there for hours. It’s not just a selling of designs, it gives all the philosophy, and ideas, and articles about things.

Thank you so much Hanneke, I really appreciate you taking the time today to speak to us at CatamaranSite.

• Tags Catamaran Designers , Catamaran Interviews

By Diane Selkirk

I love to travel and have spent the past seven years sailing with my family aboard our 40 Woods Meander catamaran - traveling from B.C.'s north coast, to the west coast of the US, Mexico, the South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia, across the Indian Ocean to South Africa and on to St Helena, South America, the Caribbean and Central America.

5 replies on “Interview with Hanneke Boon of Wharram Catamarans”

It’s easy to tell a story and write a book when the major person involved has passed on. Also she doesn’t understand modern engineering or anything. She simply could draw what’s James told her to and now that he’s gone she’s a major part of the story. Lastly this design is nothing that the islanders haven’t been doing for a very long time and James gave them all the credit along with Americans because of our ability to live out our dreams and build boats in our backyards and take chances with sailing or whatever the dream is yet hanneke doesn’t like the Americans being given credit and in older interviews where James is obviously up there in age she’s stopping him and guiding the story she wants told. James Wharram was charging very little for plans unless it was a custom new design and hanneke is detailed to make a nice living from selling James Wharram work with her as the brains behind it all.

What an impolite, ignorant, sexist comment.

Been, from what fantasy did you distill this drivel? What basis do you have to be so mean spirited, when James Wharram frequently called her his partner and collaborator.

I’m a lifelong sailor from a family of software, electrical, mechanical, and aeronautical engineers. I’ve seen nothing in Hanneke Boon’s comments or writing that indicates that she does not understand sailing or the design and construction of multihulls.

I have always loved the aesthetic of these designs and the imagery of the Wharram catalogue. Certainly, Hanneke’s drawings are in large part responsible for the romantic perception of Wharram designs today.

Regarding the comment by “been davis,” who’s to say Wharram was the brains of the operation? Hanneke joined Wharram not long after he started selling plans and has been there for 50 years. Neither of them have any formal education in yacht design and have been known to hire trained naval architects to help with their designs. The Tiki 21, which is probably the most popular Wharram design of all time, says “designed by James Wharram & Hanneke Boon” very clearly on every page of the plans, and that was over 40 years ago. If anything, she seems to be a staunch defender of his legacy.

Been Davis, is obviously lacking in knowledge, Hanneke was maybe more than 50% of Wharram designs over 50 years. Actually Benn Davis your an uneducated mouthpiece, which nobody appreciates.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Boat Profile

A Wharram catamaran

From Issue   March 2018

J ames Wharram is a multihull pioneer who has been sailing and designing exceptionally seaworthy catamarans since the 1950s. For his first voyage, he built, TANGAROA, a 23’ catamaran and sailed her from the U.K. to the Caribbean with Jutta Schulze-Rhonhof and Ruth Merseburger, both from Germany. While in the Caribbean he became a father, and the boat mothered a growing colony of teredo worms. With a strong desire to sail home, Wharram built a 40-footer and did the first North Atlantic crossing by catamaran. His designs are based on firsthand experience, regularly updated and improved, and have a safety record that is hard to beat.

I built his Tiki 21, which is designed as an easily built, trailerable coastal cruiser for adventurous folks who don’t mind bearing a small amount of discomfort to be rewarded with a boat which is in harmony with the sea. The plans are highly detailed and provide illustrations for almost every step of the process. The plans include a materials list, down to the last fitting, and an epoxy technique manual depicting everything from laminating to fairing. The plans call for 18 sheets of 1/4″ marine plywood and one sheet of 3/4″. My Tiki 21, BETO, took around 10 or 12 gallons of epoxy and a good helping of mahogany and Douglas-fir.

While the Tiki’s main is designed to be sailed with a loose foot, the author finds an easily mounted, aluminum sprit boom provides improved performance in light air.

The hulls are built using the stitch-and-glue method, making it a fairly quick build, even for the first-time builder, though practicing with some scraps of plywood and epoxy is recommended for beginners.

Construction starts with forming the hull panels and stitching them together, then moves on to installing bulkheads and bunks and fitting the decks and cabintops. After the hulls are complete, just three beams, two tillers and rudders, and a wooden mast remain as the last major projects. For BETO, I chose an aluminum mast—a 22′ length of 4″ aluminum tubing with a 1/8″ wall thickness, as recommended in the plans. I chose aluminum over wood in hopes of a lighter mast that would require less maintenance and be easier to raise when rigging.

The Tiki 21’s most controversial feature is, perhaps, the use of lashings, rather than conventional marine hardware, to hold the amas and akas (hulls and cross beams) together. Wharram believes that the lashings allow for shock absorption and decrease shock loads at the joints. Each wrap of the five loops has a 2,800-lb breaking strength. The lashings are frapped so tightly that small movements between structural members are unnoticeable. The lashing system is proven by both Wharram cats and the well-traveled Polynesian voyaging canoes of the Pacific.

The Tiki 21 plans include a motor mount set within the perimeter of the deck. The pod added to this boat frees up deck space and includes a place for the gas tank. The cross beams, or akas, are stitch-and-glue I-beams.

The Tiki 21 was designed to be assembled on a beach at low tide and to float away when the sea returns. It has a 14″ draft, and each hull weighs in right under 200 lbs when completed. For our negligible tidal range and for freshwater sailing, I chose to build a trailer with telescoping sides that allow the hulls to be expanded outward for boat assembly before being backed down the ramp. We currently sail BETO on a small lake, so it rests on the trailer between outings.

When we want a taste of salt water, we unlash the beams and slide the hulls together for a package that is a little wider than my small Toyota truck. I can assemble the boat by myself in two hours and disassemble it in an hour. This is pretty fast to be on the water, and a helper could easily bring this time down as the lashings and frappings are the most time-consuming tasks. Some Tiki sailors have had good luck with ratchet straps and nylon webbing when trailering to daysail. I wouldn’t recommend ratchets in lieu of lashings for venturing offshore, however.

The Tiki 21 was designed with cruising accommodations for two, but there is room for more on deck. The catamaran has a carrying capacity of a half ton.

So how does the Tiki 21 sail? I’m a former racing catamaran sailor whose friends all sail go-fast boats, and I think it sails like a dream! The rig is a Wharram “Wing” sail that keeps the center of gravity low and the power high. The sail is modeled after a high-aspect Dutch gaff rig, using a short gaff at the peak and an elongated luff pocket that envelops the mast and minimizes turbulent airflow. This unique arrangement offers performance similar to modern rotating masts and square-top mainsails without all of the moving parts.

The mainsail is sewn with a luff sleeve for a smother flow of air around the mast. The jib and main halyards run along the mast inside the sleeve. This Tiki 21 was built by Rick Hueschen of North Carolina.

Unlike older Wharram designs, the Tiki 21 has a power-to-weight ratio that can get one in trouble if the wind pipes up. In light air, however, it is slightly undercanvased, and a drifter works wonders. The deep-V hulls have hardly any noticeable leeway if sails are trimmed correctly, and can tack in light and heavy air even sailing just the main.

The rudders are lashed to the sternposts and skegs and do not extend below beneath them, so the Tiki can’t turn on a dime in tight quarters. However, when sailing, it tracks like it is on rails. I sail upwind all the time in up to 20 knots with just a bungee crossed over the tiller. The Tiki is superbly well balanced and will sail along happily with proper trim. To windward we have seen 7 knots with the wind at 50 degrees true, falling down to around 5 knots at 40 degrees true. Off the wind, BETO has clocked 15 knots while power-reaching with no noticeable lifting of the windward hull (check my video ). For normal cruising, we reef the main and jib in 15 knots to keep dry on deck and fully in control while still making 8 to 10 knots on a reach. For sails, we carry a main with three reefs, a jib with one reef, a nylon drifter, an asymmetric spinnaker, and a storm jib. I have an outboard, but I learned to sail on a 22’ engineless racing sloop, so I have plenty of patience when the wind dies, preferring not to deal with a nasty outboard and volatile gasoline. Using a stand-up paddle, I can move the Tiki all day at 3 knots in flat water, and with a second paddler it’s even faster.

While each hull provides room for a narrow berth, the deck provides more spacious accommodations when equipped with a canopy or a free-standing tent.

For coastal cruising on a small catamaran, one can really not find a better-suited vessel than the Tiki 21. The accommodations inside each hull provide a 12′-long bunk that is 2′ wide; the hulls span 3-1/2′ at the sheer. Our sleeping accommodations are often a two-person tent set on deck, or my girlfriend and I can get cuddly and sleep in one hull if needed. All of the bunks are above the waterline, and under them are the bilges, which provide loads of storage. The load capacity is listed as 1,000 lbs. The bows and sterns all have watertight flotation chambers. The anchor locker doubles as another flotation chamber. The Tiki 21 has six bulkheads in each small hull, making it a strong little boat. Resting between the akas is a plywood deck measuring 6′ x 7′ that never moves far from level when under sail. For my own preference I built a slatted cedar deck instead of a solid plywood one, and it has since been approved by the Wharram Design team.

Rory McDougall sailed his modified Tiki 21, COOKING FAT, around the world in the early 1990s, and until just recently he held the record for sailing the smallest catamaran in a circumnavigation. He experienced gales pushing waves up to 30′, and his boat suffered little damage. In 2010, McDougall sailed in the Jester Challenge, a single-handed transatlantic race for boats between 20′ and 30′, and came in second after 34 days under way, just a few hours after a larger monohull. When in storms, McDougall goes on his sea anchor and reports that the Tiki rides very happily and calmly. In his first gale on sea anchor, he even felt so relaxed that he tied a jibsheet around himself and jumped overboard to swim the swells!

Brad Ingram lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and enjoys sailing, running ultramarathons, and climbing. He spent eight years in 20th Special Forces Group on a small Intelligence team, and he’s now going to nursing school as a civilian. He plans to travel while working as a nurse, making it easy to spend a significant amount of the year traveling in the mountains or at sea. Among all of his recreational pursuits, sailing occupies the lion’s share of his enthusiasm and interest. He mostly enjoys small boat cruises and small, raid-type multihulls. He has a passion for simple, traditional vessels and enjoys sailing sport boats as well. 

Tiki 21 Particulars

Waterline length/18′6″

Weight/790 lbs

Load Capacity/1000 lbs

sail area/208 sq ft

Study plans (£19.00) and full sets of plans (£505.00) are available from James Wharram Designs .

Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats Monthly readers would enjoy? Please email us!

Share this article

Join The Conversation

We welcome your comments about this article. If you’d like to include a photo or a video with your comment, please email the file or link.

Comments (9)

For anyone interested in seeing more Wharrams up close, there will be a Hui Wharram Sail-In in Fort Meyers on May 18 through 20th. I think SV BETO will be there as well. Details here .

Is the Hui sail-in still held in Ft Meyers? I live close to there and would love to see some homebuilt catamarans!

The book is also available as a Kindle edition . Editor

Merci pour toute ces informations sur Tiki 21.

(Thanks for all this information about the Tiki 21.)

Thank you for the article. Isn’t there a second pair of shrouds in the design? Why do you bother with an engine and all the paraphernalia attached to it, starting with the pod? Do you feel a stand-up paddle is faster than sculling a sweep? I am planning to use a sweep on my Tiki 26. I used to move my 35′ engineless steel cutter up to ¾ to 1 knot with a self-made 16′ oar. I never had an engine on my Shark 24. Do you think a ply platform might be structural and reduces the torsion leading to a slacker stay? I am planning to test the Tiki 26 without a platform, only netting, à la Cookie.

Sorry to just get back to you. The white boat is not mine. BETO is the green one with no motor. The platform is in no way structural, and I just like the SUP paddle as it goes right into action and I do a lot of paddling with the same motion for exercise.

I really like your engine mount. I’m almost finished building my Tiki 21 and don’t like the idea of stinking old engine sitting up in the middle of the deck and sleeping/lounging area. So I think I’ll copy you. Anything I need to be aware of? Could you send other photos that explain your system more clearly. Many thanks, Tom

How wide are the hulls ???

Does anyone know of a Tiki 21 in the NW US? Washington, Idaho, Oregon? I have built kayaks, sailed small boats, and really like what I see in the Tiki 21 but would like to sail one, or at least see one in person, before committing to a year of building. Thank you!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Stay On Course

More From This Issue

From The Editor

The boat was a Herreshoff Amphi-craft, designed in 1935 by Sidney Herreshoff, Captain Nat’s eldest son. Dad had always been enamored of wooden boats. He grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts,…

The Ebb is easily moved under oars, though its light weight made measuring its speed difficult. Weighing well under half my weight, the Ebb followed Newton's Third Law of Motion…

The plans are highly detailed and provide illustrations for almost every step of the process. The plans include a materials list, down to the last fitting, and an epoxy technique…

From the Channel to the Med

When my husband Mat and I set off from Sidmouth, England, our destination was the Mediterranean, roughly 870 miles (1,400km) south. We planned to reach it through the inland waterways…

Copper Guards

The traditional approach has been to cover the blade tips with sheet copper. The copper guards look good, take wear well, and make a good do-it-yourself project. I always put…

Product Reviews

With these requirements in mind we found our way to Flexpoxy, a thickened epoxy that comes in a 250mL, two-part cartridge that fits a standard caulk gun. Flexpoxy comes out…

The Portable Buddy

The Portable Buddy, a radiant infrared propane heater from Mr. Heater, is a practical way to extend the boating season. It’s not a 24/7 solution that will take you to…

Reader Built Boats

Last year, Curt White of Saluda, North Carolina, made some even more dramatic modifications to his Escargot, BEULAH, creating a well-appointed living room afloat. He and his wife Debby had…

More Boat Profile

The Marsh Cat

I had spent a long time looking for a boat that I could build to sail the waters of Chesapeake Bay and beyond. The boat would need to be able…

Belle Daysailer

After I saw the photograph in the calendar, I searched up BELLE and found that Dan Gonneau, the designer/builder, had written a blog post that was a stream-of-consciousness diary about…

A Gaff Sloop

Paul Gartside’s 16′ Gaff Sloop, his Design No. 218, has its roots in SJOGIN, a 22′ traditional double-ended Scandinavian workboat built in the late ’50s. Paul designed a modified version…

Grumman’s 17′ Double-Ender

Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation was founded in 1929 and manufactured Navy fighter planes during World War II. One of the company vice presidents, William Hoffman, after portaging a heavy wood-and-canvas…

Subscribe Today!

Become a subscriber today and you’ll recieve a new issue every month plus unlimited access to our full archive of backlogged issues.

Already a subscriber?   Sign In

Subscribe For Full Access

Flipbooks are available to paid subscribers only. Subscribe now or log in for access.

James Wharram Designs

Search Our Site

• Self Build Boats
• Professionally Built Boats
• Choosing a Boat

How We Design

• Photo Gallery
• Video Gallery

Articles & Blogs

• Wharram World

Several articles giving an in-depth look at our core design principles and how they are reflected as seaworthy, stable vessels sailing the oceans.

The Philosophy Behind The Ethnic Approach

An overview of James Wharram Design's core design principles and how new designs are created to reflect these principles. "Watercraft and living on the sea is one of the 'arch-types of our sub-conscious'. We design boats to fulfil this need by not only supplying a boat design, but also encouraging - through design - a lifestyle suitable for sea living, using simplicity as its basis. Simplicity leads us to look for the most appropriate, cost-effective building materials."

Heavy Weather Sailing on Wharrams

How the design of Wharram catamarans is influenced by the experiences of many ocean storms. "Some multihull designers find inspiration on the screen of the computer. I find inspiration when I am s**t scared at the rapid approach of a huge white capped wave. It is as if the adrenaline of 'how do I get out of this?' gets connected to ' how do I design my way out of this? '"

The Wharram Wingsail Rig

First designed in the early 1980s for the Tiki 21, the unique Wharram Wingsail Rig is a simple, aerodynamically clean sail rig . It is now available for use on all Wharram designs as sloop, or schooner rig. "My biggest design problem for 40 years was solved. Two masted rigs have smaller, easier handled sails and lighter gear than single masted rigs. On multihulls they also have, most important, a lower centre of effort than single masted rigs, giving less capsizing force".

Freeboard and Windage

Freeboard affects the windage and hence the windward sailing ability of a catamaran . This article written for an Australian yacht magazine in 2003 looks at the origins of multihulls and what makes them work. "With durable awning fabrics, webbing straps, Velcro and zippers, one can create a variety of centre-deck tent-cabins, sheltered from the elements. Remove this windage when sailing, and you get the sailing efficiency of a true responsive sailing catamaran".

Catamaran Stability

What makes a multihull stable. This seminal article was published in several yachting magazines. It is still as valid today as when it was written in 1991. "A cruising catamaran designed to these principles gives no stability problems to the average yachtsman and his family , enjoying its broad decked upright sailing".

Design Discussion

In this article James compares Pahi 63 Spirit of Gaia’s design features with those of the charter Pahi 52. Spirit of Gaia’s Wingsail Rig is tried and tested by other catamaran sailors .

Practical Advice

Advice for first-time Wharram builders or people new to the Wharram world.

Choosing A Boat

Having looked at all the Wharram designs, you may immediately have identified with one of them as the boat for you. But it is possible you are more confused than before you started looking! To help you, we have made a table of the basic requirements, building times, building methods, costs , and some practical advice.

Articles documenting some highlights of our adventures and projects.

The Lapita Voyage

Two 38ft double canoes, of our own design and based on an ancient Polynesian canoe hull-form, set out on a 4,000Nm voyage along the island chains of the Philippines . It was the first exploration by Ethnic sailing craft of one possible migration route into the Central Pacific. The voyage was made entirely under sail, using traditional Polynesian crab claw sails and steering paddles.

Spirit of Gaia Renovation, 20 Years After Her Launching

Pahi 63 'Spirit of Gaia' is a test case to see the durability of wood epoxy and of various design elements we used in her. She was sailed hard for 15 years, including a round the world voyage. These blogs cover her maintenance work in detail and we hope they may be useful to you in carrying out your own maintenance, building or renovation project.

James Wharram's Philosophical Articles, Papers, and Biographies

Philosophical writings by James, including papers delivered at major marine archeology conferences, as well as external biographies.

Eric de Bisschop And James Wharram - Catamaran Pioneers

One man above all has kept the memory and achievements of the French pioneer of modern catamarans, Eric de Bisschop, alive. This is James Wharram, who at the age of 16 bought Eric de Bisschop's book ' The voyage of the Kaimiloa '. James, with his cherished book, took up the banner of Eric de Bisschop and made two pioneering double canoe voyages across the Atlantic.

Lessons From The Stone Age Sailors

A study of canoe form craft, with observations of canoe form craft made in the Pacific and Indian Oceans during 1995-98, aboard double canoe Spirit of Gaia.

Recreating The Migration Route Of The Proto Polynesians

From the 'Early Man And The Ocean' conference, Norway, 2008. As a young man, dreaming of sea adventure, I was inspired by Thor Heyerdahl and his 1947 Kontiki voyage. With this voyage, he established the basic premises of Experimental Marine Archaeology, which continue to this day. Heyerdahl had addressed himself to THIS problem: " How had Pacific Ocean Man arrived across 1000s of miles of ocean in the central Pacific islands?"

Revival Of Sailing Culture In Remote Island Communities

From the 'Early Man And The Ocean' conference, Norway, 2010. I am pleased to report back to this conference in 2010 that we successfully completed the 4000Nm Lapita Voyage . 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.

James Wharram's Published Biographical Articles

A selection of biographical and philosophical articles about James Wharram that have appeared in boat magazines around the world.