Kaimusailing

s/v Kaimu Wharram Catamaran

Vessel Name: Kaimu
Vessel Make/Model: Wharram Custom
Hailing Port: Norwalk, CT
Crew: Andy and the Kaimu Crew
About: Sailors in the Baltimore, Annapolis, DC area.
21 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA
01 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA
23 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
15 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
11 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
06 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
26 January 2024 | St. Marys, GA
14 January 2024 | St. Marys, GA
09 January 2024 | St Marys, GA
23 December 2023 | St Marys, GA
10 December 2023 | St Marys, GA
25 November 2023 | St. Marys, GA
17 November 2023 | St. Marys, GA
17 November 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
03 November 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
26 October 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
17 October 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
11 October 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
04 October 2023 | Alice B. Tawes, McReady Pavilion, Crisfield, Maryland Eastern Shore
03 October 2023 | Alice B. Tawes, McReady Pavilion, Crisfield, Maryland Eastern Shore
Recent Blog Posts
21 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA

Just Add Water

The rainy weekend started off with overcast and fog but no rain. It looked like I might be able to get something done on the D4 dinghy. I wanted to change the bow seat which is really the bow deck. The sailing option uses the deck to hold the freestanding mast. I didn’t like how the deck looked, [...]

01 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Dinghy Alternative Seats

The rain event was more wind than rain, strong winds with gusts up to 44 mph. We drove into town to see what the harbor was like. There was a small sailboat that had dragged anchor and was sitting close to shore. The tide was out. We left and played with Bleu at Notter’s Pond.

23 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Inside Seams

Day two of the dinghy build started out with me finishing wiring the hull bottoms together on the centerline of the bottom panels. This was much easier than the wiring of the chine edges of the bottom panels and the side panels.

15 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Dinghy Day One

A Wharram Pahi 26 had been anchored in the river nearby the boatyard and was hauled out with the travel lift. I went around to look at it and talked to the owner couple. I was surprised that it had been built in Martinique in 1988. The boat is more than 30 years old.

11 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Redux

The inflatable (deflatable) dinghy I had bought was deteriorating. It had bottom seams separating. It is a West Marine branded dinghy made out of PVC. HH66 is the adhesive to reattach the seams. A friend had a similar problem and bought the same adhesive. I was waiting to hear from him how it worked [...]

06 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

The Clincher

We decided to go to Amelia Island for the day, probably to the beach. Our plan to cycle around on the Raleigh 20’s seemed like a bad idea, Bleu can’t keep up with a bicycle for very long and when he quits he quits. So we would walk, where?, Fort Clinch State Park. She has a forever pass for Florida [...]

Hatching a Plan

13 October 2012 | Bodkin Inlet/Chesapeake Bay
Capn Andy/colder
Strangely, while I was looking over the original plans of the Narai MKIV that later became Kaimu, the original builder contacted me and in his correspondence he said these plans were improperly sold to him, when he contacted James Wharram Designs with questions, there was no record of the sail number of the plan. The agent in North America had sold a copy of the plan and not properly registered it or paid the required fee to the designer. To further muddle the legality of the design, the actual boat, as built, isn't even built to the original plan. So, we have an oddball boat built form oddball plans. Not that any of the builders were oddballs.
All this reorganization is part of the process of change from a boat building project to boat sailing and maintenance. Problems arise all along the way from when the idea of building a boat first comes along to the time when a boat is afloat and ready for voyaging. The problems seem to come mostly from changing modes, for instance going from ordinary citizen to busy boat builder, and then going on from there to voyaging sailor. The way to deal with these problems is to manage the change from one mode to another so that the change is more gradual and easier to deal with. The opposite would be a sudden change, suddenly quit the day job and start building a boat, finish the boat and then launch it and sail away directly. This would obviously create big problems. The eagerness to "get on with it" should be tempered with a "maintain an even strain" attitude.
So, we are doing a gradual transition. The boat is in the water as it has been for some time. The boatbuilding paraphernalia that cluttered the boat on deck and in the interior has been removed. The ongoing maintenance supplies and ordinary gear required to operate the boat are being moved on board.
The Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race came up and I wanted to go out and get a look at them. The fleet would leave Baltimore in the morning and sail south to Annapolis, then organize for the start at 1 in the afternoon. I was thinking of motoring out the inlet and the shipping channel is right there, I could hang out and watch them sail by. Another thought was to take the 420 dinghy out for a morning sail. I often sailed the length of the inlet and I would be right there to see the schooners.
When the morning actually came around, it was very chilly, so I chickened out and went to Ft. Smallwood Park, right about where I would have been in one of the boats, but it was a lot warmer in the car. There was a good NW breeze blowing and the schooners came down from Baltimore, broad reaching, but wait, they didn't take the channel toward Annapolis, they took the north channel the other side of the Patapsco River into the bay. If I had gone out Bodkin Inlet to see them, I would have been disappointed.
The schooners were magnificent, but the cold weather worried me. I had a couple of repairs to do on deck that needed epoxy and epoxy needed warmth to cure. I would have to get to work quickly and finish up those repairs before cold weather set in. Even now it might be too late.
So, my gradual transition from boatbuilding to boat sailing went pfft, and it was back to boatbuilding. Back came the saws and other power tools. There was a soft spot in the starboard cabin top right over the dinette table. I was planning to put a hatch there someday, just like the one over the main bunk in the other hull, but I wasn't planning on doing it right now. I marked the spot and cut away the sheathing to see what was below. The plywood was pretty bad there, and there was no reason for it to be rotten. There was a smell of uncured epoxy hardener when I cut into the sheathing. This hull had required resheathing on its topsides and bottom back in 2003. It looked to me that maybe there was more to that sheathing failure than what I found back then. Epoxy isn't perfect, it is supposed to seal the wood from air and moisture, but it can be permeated over a long period of time.
The hatch that was to be installed is a Lewmar Concept, a model that is now obsolete, but was new when purchased. One problem was that the hatch over the main bunk, an identical hatch, was leaking every time it rained. The installation was new, there was no reason for the hatch to leak. I tested it by putting a garden hose at low pressure on top of the closed hatch and let water dribble onto the hatch, just like a mild rain. Inside the main bunk I could see it was leaking from the hatch frame, not from the opening glass or its gasket. I removed the screws holding the hatch in place, but I couldn't remove it from the cabin top. It wasn't really necessary to remove it, anyway, it looked like the screws themselves were the source of the leak. Actually one screw in particular.
The hatch was masked off and caulked with additional silicone as well as the screw holes and the screws were rescrewed down. Back on the other cabin top, over the dinette table, the hole for the new hatch was marked and cut out. The bad wood was first removed to be sure all of it would be gone when the hole was cut. The perimeter of the hatch was used to mark the sheathing and it was removed. The hatch was then placed on the bare spot left by the removed sheathing and the edge of the hatch's flange was used to mark the hole. The cuts were made with the multitool with a halfmoon blade for the straight sides of the hatch, and the tiny straight blade for the curved corners. The cabin top is composite, like the decks, so first the sheathing was removed, then the 3/8" ply, then the foam core, and last the 1/4" inner ply. The hole was compared to the hatch and trimmed to fit and then any lumpy spots were smoothed with the right angle grinder and a flap disk (80 grit).
The Columbus Day sales prodded me into buying a small freezer. I had been contemplating this ever since Ann and Neville Clement posted that they used a small freezer to make ice, then used the ice in a cooler instead of refrigerator. The unit I chose was by Haier, 3.5 cubic feet, and the lowest energy rating I could find. It was possible to fit it into the pilothouse recessed into the sole, taking up very little room. It fit into the existing hatch in the pilothouse sole with only a small trimming of 45 degrees of the back rabbet of the hatch hole, and when it dropped in, it only had about 1/2 inch of clearance all around. Some corner foam shock absorbers will be fit to wedge it in for sea duty.
The picture is of the hatch hole cut for the cabin roof over the dinette table.
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