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 [...]

St. Lucia SPOT

20 October 2017 | St Lucia
Capn Andy/85 degree Tradewinds
Early morning flight from Jacksonville to Miami with a 2 hour layover for breakfast, then a flight to St. Lucia to join the yacht, a Beneteau 50, not sure which specific model yet. They are all about the same, the ex-charter 50‘s, the Oceanis 50 and Beneteau 50. The charter boats have 4 double staterooms with private heads with additional accommodations in the forepeak. 4 or 5 heads. This particular boat is said to have a bow thruster and electric winches. It is a sloop with a rig a bit bigger than Kaimu’s.
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Our discussion concerns the itinerary, a deadline to be at a port with an airport on the 28th or so, owner to leave the vessel to return stateside on the 29th. The beeline from St. Lucia to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic is 500 miles. Most of the Caribbean from Barbuda to Cuba has been affected by recent hurricane strikes. Puerto Rico is a mess with widespread power outages and food shortages. The Virgins and St. Maarten also in questionable state. Certainly questionable to stop there without some specific news of the condition of facilities. The owner has said he wants to stop at several ports, but one cannot enter Puerto Rico except by one port on each side of the island, North, South, East, and West. My estimate for days at sea between St. Lucia and Punta Cana is 5.83, arrived at by a complicated proprietary formula. This allows one day in port giving us a grand total of 7 days for the passage, and the layover port can be anywhere, Antigua, St. Croix, or ?, not too many options available.
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We are fatigued on our arrival in St. Lucia. The airport is at the south end of the island and Rodney Bay is way up north. A cabbie says it will take 1 1/2 hours to drive up there. We had little sleep the night before and although fellow passengers on the flight down from Miami were zonked out, I stayed awake. The problem was that this was an Airbus, which has a nifty personal entertainment system. I was watching back to back episodes of the crab fishing show, Deadliest Catch. They were recent episodes I had not yet seen and included a full fledged Bering Sea storm with 33 foot seas, crab fishing crews who were working around the clock in that weather to catch their quota of red king crab. How could I sleep when those crews were working around the clock like that.
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The cab ride gave us a good look at the island. The road was generally twisty, turny, uphill, downhill, ears popping, and traffic flying at you from the wrong side of the road. They drive like the English here with not so much of the stiff upper lip, more like an aggressive snarl. Actually the people I’ve met are very courteous, giving, and patient with visitors from the USA who are wound up with schedules to meet and lists of critical items to check before heading out to sea.
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A Moorings representative who is a dockmaster and in charge of over 40 boats showed us around the boat, something he probably has to do two dozen times a week to charter customers before they take a boat out. It is not a complicated boat, no AIS receiver or transmitter, no SSB HF radio, pactor modem, navtex, but it had Raymarine ST70 instruments, autopilot, chartplotter, but it had no solar panels, just a generator to charge the batteries, or run the engine. Twin helms, a bow thruster control, 3 electric winches for the jib sheets and the main, so 4 cockpit winches total, and it of course has a windlass up forward. The galley has a 3 burner propane cooktop and stove, there is a microwave oven, and an essential coffeemaker, and two iceboxes.
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The cockpit has a large bimini and a soft dodger, together they help keep the inclement weather out of the cockpit while giving a 360 degree view and allowing the wind to hit the helmsman, who is the least protected. There are teak inlays in the deck which serve as antiskid.
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This boat is designed to provide accommodation for 4 couples and allow in port entertainment. It is a charter vessel. I’m guessing the sloop rig is aimed at tradewind sailing, much like the Lagoon 380 of last month, only this time we will actually be sailing in the tradewinds.
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Here’s a link to the SPOT tracking page:
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http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0CYzKTn7W2QC6KWbODfZ09mRAQLYuItGb
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The image is the SPOT tracking from before and after the air flight.
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