Friday, March 05 2010 @ 06:03 AM GMT
Contributed by: Anonymous
Views: 55
My story is really a personal one for James.
When my husband David Graham was a young boy in Manchester, England, James' family were neighbours and David met James and talked boats with him occasionally I gather.
David and I met and married in the early 6o's then emigrated to Australia and though David worked in the aircraft industry he maintained a great interest in boats.
In about 1989 David was begining to think about early retirement and what we would do. At this time we had a trailer sailer which we took all over the place. David however had bigger and better ideas, he would build a catamaran, which he did, it was not a Wharram but we had it for nine years after our retirement, and enjoyed every minute of it.
We had to sell her in 2005 as David became sick and passed away on Jan. 1st. this year aged 70yrs.
I thought James might be interested in this little story and what influence he may have had on this young boy living in industrial Manchester.
Pauline Graham
A month from today Hanneke and I will begin our flights out to Andy Smith Boatworks’ yard in the Philippines. A month later, on November 1st we will begin our Lapita Voyage, 3800Nm, south through the Moluccas, along the North coast of New Guinea, passing through the Solomon Islands and on to Tikopia and Anuta, where we will present the two boats to the islanders so they can restart their seafaring tradition. see www.lapita-voyage.org
The Lapita Voyage project has grown from a simple ‘donating two ships to the islanders’ to a major archaeological expedition. This voyage is providing a vehicle for various archaeologists/scientists with interests in the Polynesian migrations and Lapita culture to carry out studies impossible to do from a land based expedition. Five scientists will be sailing on different legs of the voyage. Others, who cannot leave their posts at their universities or archaeological digs, are participating from a distance. The expedition will be filmed for television.
Friday, June 20 2008 @ 09:53 AM BST
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 594
The sleek strip-plank hulls of one of the 'Lapita Voyage' Tama Moana’s are taking shape.
Monday 16th June.
It is a beautiful bright Monday morning, I should be out walking along our creek, or better still, sailing down the creek into Carrick Roads, but alas with all our travels non of our small boats are yet ready for sailing.
Hanneke, the ‘Ringmeister’ here at JWD has just dropped a bombshell (as I was enjoying my porridge) “do you know that in 8 days you are flying to America to be honoured as a multihull pioneer at the Mystic Wooden Boat Show (organised by Wooden Boat magazine) and they want you to prepare a talk for them”. Then she carried on, “and on your last newsletter you promised that you would write about your trip and lecture given in Norway, you have let your friend Klaus down in not writing up the progress of the Lapita Voyage / Tikopia project." (The charity project that has now turned into a major scientific study of early Pacific voyaging www.lapita-voyage.org & www.tikopia.org ). Then Ruth Wharram added her concern; our dear friend of 40 years, George Payne, the man I originally designed the Raka for all those years ago, has died at the age of 95, “he deserves an obituary from you”. See George’s book ‘Nine Boats Nine Lives’ in our webshop: http://wharram.com/sales
My last Blog (God, how I hate that ugly word) was about our visit to Mumbai, India, the Mumbai Boatshow and our new Professional builder Rajesh of Viking Boats.
Before we went, Hanneke pointed out that Phuket, Thailand was also in Asia, i.e. ‘on the way’ and we had three good reasons to visit there. So two planes and 8 hours after leaving Mumbai, I was staggering (and I mean staggering - my right knee has ‘gone’, due to a miss spent youth rock climbing and carrying a heavy pack over mountains) off the plane into the beautiful morning light of Phuket.
The four reasons to visit Phuket were 1) to visit the Seascape yard again and see our builder Günther Nutt (Liechtensteiner), 2) to meet ‘Mad Max’ Jurgens the Dutchman who charters Wharram catamarans in Phuket (Siam Sailing), 3) to sail on the Islander 55 which is used as a charter boat by Alex who is Spanish and finally to visit the Rolly Tasker sail loft.
Günther had arranged a room for us at ‘The Lighthouse’, a beautiful room with a wide view across Chalong Bay. There were ten Wharrams in view, oh dear I thought, 10 Wharrams, that means either 10 owners who tell me how bad the design is and the improvements I need to make, or 10 who tell me how good the designs are, “don’t change anything”, who tell me what a wonderful sailing time they are having and “why am I not out there sailing with them”.
Günther has lived in Thailand for 22 years and speaks Thai, he is an authority on Thai relationships, which includes their women (behind their beauty they are tough intelligent women), and on the Thai food he introduced us to; do beware the red Chillies, one small piece and you won’t taste the delicate flavours of the rest of the food.
James and Günther discuss the details of the beautiful Tiki 38, and talk to the very competent yard foreman.
At the moment my dream is to sit aboard a Tiki 30 in a quiet creek with access to a bay and the open sea. I wish to sit there for several days with a stack of books, simple good food and wine and DO NOTHING, just wait for the peace and oneness with nature to enter my world.
Then when that happens, with a few wind ripples showing on the water I will hoist sail and gently sail off. No effort, no stress, just enjoy. Mentally in tune I will enter the bay, then sail out of the bay and into the open sea, the roadway to the ocean and far lands.
The reason for this desire to go back into myself, is that for the last 2 months I (with Hanneke) have been on the move, from aeroplane to aeroplane, country to country. It started at the end of February with two weeks in Mumbai/Bombay India, followed by one week in Phuket, Thailand, meeting franchised builders of my boats, owners of my boats, would-be owners of my boats, hearing stories of my boats, sailing on my boats. Then within two weeks of returning home we were off again to Oslo, Norway, to give a paper at a Conference. All this has built up to a ‘noise factor’ in my brain that sets me dreaming of finding my essential self, the person behind the ‘noise’.
Mumbai Boatshow: Our builder Rajesh talks to the customers, while I have a quiet chat to the representative of the Italian Trade Federation.
You can submit news articles, stories or classified ads to these pages using the menu at the top of this page. Click 'calendar' to submit news of up-coming events that you would like to share with the Wharram community.
