James Wharram, the British pioneer catamaran designer, will be 80 years old this May. He may be getting on in years, but has far from retired, in fact he is involved in more exciting projects than ever this year.

At the end of June he will be honoured at a ‘Tribute to the Multihull Pioneers’ at the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, USA, along with the other well-known British multihull designer Nigel Irons (organised by Wooden Boat magazine).

On the 4th April, just 2 weeks after returning from a trip to India and Thailand visiting his franchised yards, James was a speaker at the ‘Early Man and the Ocean’ conference and film festival in Oslo, held at the Kontiki and Norwegian Maritime Museums. This conference explored the ‘Current Knowledge of Ancient Navigation and Sailing Techniques’ with a focus on ‘Experimental Marine Archaeology’.

What is perhaps not commonly known is that over the last 25 years Wharram, as well as working on catamaran designs for modern Man has been quietly working away in the field of Experimental Marine Archaeology. His basic conclusions are that over half the world’s surface, the Pacific and Indian Oceans, were settled before the Christian era by raft stable canoe craft, now called catamarans and trimarans. These settlement voyages were not done by ‘heroes’ but by people animated by the joy of sailing, who the modern cruising yachtsman can easily relate to. (Read his attached paper for details)

Speakers at the Oslo conference were the crew of the balsa raft ‘Tangaroa’, including the grandson of Thor Heyerdahl, who 2 years ago successfully replicated Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 ‘Kontiki’ voyage across the Pacific.

Other speakers were Norwegian sailors of Viking style craft, as well as the Danish Vikings, who last year sailed their 30m replica Vikingship ‘Seastallion’ from Denmark to Dublin (shown on BBC television ‘Timewatch’ program in February).

In the middle of all these Vikings was British James, giving a well received paper on early Pacific and Indian Ocean sailors. Within his paper was the introduction of the ‘Lapita Voyage’ project.

This Lapita Voyage, which will start in November, will be James’ greatest event of the year:

The ‘Lapita Voyage’ project is to build two 11m double canoes, based on an ancient Polynesian hullshape, in the Philippines and sail them 3800Nm to the islands of Anuta and Tikopia, following the ancient migration route of the proto Polynesians along the North coast of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

The building of the two boats has started this month at Andy Smith Boatworks, with the 4 hulls already taking shape. The voyage is planned to start in November 2008, making use of the Westerly Monsoon winds.

The two boats will sail like the original migration vessels, without engines or escort boat using Pacific navigation methods. James Wharram and his design partner Hanneke Boon (Dutch) will skipper one boat; the other will be skippered by Klaus Hympendahl (German), partner in this venture. Klaus is an experienced ocean sailor and author of many sailing books; he has a particular interest in non-instrument Pacific navigation, has lived on Tikopia and visited Anuta (Tikopia’s sister island).

Klaus Hympendahl has been responsible for raising sponsorship for the Project over the last year. Many German firms at the Düsseldorf Boatshow offered equipment and materials for the voyage. Klaus has raised some of the money for building the boats, by dividing the voyage into 6 legs and offering a crew place on each boat on each leg for a substantial donation.

There is still a need for another €30,000 in expedition costs and we hope to get offers for reduced airfares for the crew, particularly for the Anuta and Tikopia crew members that will be joining the voyage.

The building of the ships and the voyage will be recorded on film, which will be made into a television program.

At the end of the voyage the boats will be presented to the islands of Tikopia and Anuta so they can remain self sufficient and continue their offshore sailing traditions. (Anuta was featured in a recent BBC Bruce Parry ‘Tribe’ program)

In between these many travels James (and his partner Hanneke Boon) has still managed to find some time for a new design. This is a 39’ Eco-Charter catamaran, designed for warm climate sailing. It received a lot of interest at the Mumbai Boatshow (28th Feb – 2nd March), as well as in Thailand where there is a developing Eco charter market.

Links:
www.lapita-voyage.org
www.tikopia.org
www.andy-smith-boatworks.com