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 [...]

Droning On and On

31 March 2015 | Bodkin Inlet/Chesapeake Bay
Capn Andy/Spring Begins!
A shopping trip to Harbor Freight got us a new 1/2” drill and stepped bits to bore holes in the aluminum mast for shroud attachments. Over at West Marine, who are having a Big Sale, a couple of heavy duty straps to hang halyard blocks were purchased. At Home Depot I kind of zoned out while looking for small stainless bolts that join segments of the sail track together. It turned out they were #6 and 1 3/4 inches long, but I found, after a long search, packs of 4... that turned out to be 1 1/2 inches long. I have to go back and return them. At Ace Hardware, the correct bolts and stainless lock nuts were found and purchased.
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I had looked for a plumbing flange, a small one, to mount the anchor light on the flange part and mount the pipe part of it on the top of the mast. The mast head has a sort of pipe extending up about 5 inches, perfect for that all around anchor light. I could not find such a flange locally.
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There is also a 1 inch diameter hole in the masthead, perfect to lead cable for the VHF antenna. When I probed the hole and the pipe extension, there was an obstruction inside the mast a short way down. I was able to remove foam, in pieces, through a bolt hole near the top of the mast. After trying to look into the mast and probing, it seems that there is a bunch of foam and PVC pipe inside the mast in the top half. This is not normal mast construction. Wire that I had removed was not tinned copper, so it was probably not installed by the manufacturer. Some research on the internet turned up a debate on methods of eliminating clanking of internal wire in the mast. One suggestion was foam insulation, another was PVC conduit attached inside the mast. What did we have? Belt and Suspenders? It looks like it is PVC conduit held in place by foam blocks. It is a mess now that has to be removed.
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I used a plumbers snake with a sharp coil at the end to try to rip into the foam, but it didn't work. It was possible to use a “fish tape” to pull a line through the mast and try to pull a piece of pipe back through the mast and attempt to drag some of the foam along with it. That didn't work either. At least I knew I could draw new electric wiring up the mast. I guess they did a good job of jamming the foam in the mast. It probably is there to stay.
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While working on the mast at the dock I heard a buzzing humming sound. It was coming from a small drone hovering about a hundred feet away. I took a picture of it and cropped from the picture for this photo. Later I found a new website created for the Pleasure Cove Marina, not too far away, and the website has aerial photos, probably from this drone.
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