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 [...]

Cabin Fever

10 January 2010 | Chesapeake Bay
Captn Andy/icy

It has been a while since posting the last blog and part of the problem has been procrastination. A busy work schedule that took away some of the weekend time set aside for boatwork also delayed the project. The weather held up boatwork and finally gave the final blow, literally, with near gale force winds and a 2 foot snowfall.
When time did become available over the holidays, I retreated indoors and became an armchair captain, reading a bunch of downloaded issues of Latitudes and Attitudes magazine. This magazine is available free online at seafaring.com and I was lucky to find their extensive archive, downloading about 70 issues. At some point they began to offer only the current issues. The magazine is published by ex-biker Bob Bitchin and is focused on the cruising and voyaging lifestyle.
I still managed to get down to the dock and make preparations for winter. The plow anchor had been set off to starboard to keep the boat off the dock. It had to come up and the rode stowed. Extra fenders were put out to help protect from the dock. The windlass which had been rebuilt over the summer refused to turn and will have to be removed and rebuilt again. It looks like vertical windlass configuration results in water migrating down from the head of the windlass down through the gearbox and finally into the motor.
The anchor and rode were pulled up by hand, the boat was released from the dock and let out to allow the anchor to be brought on board, and the barnacle and weed encrusted rode was cleaned and stowed in the chain locker. Further preparations included stowing the whitehall dinghies on the dock with protective cover and clearing leftover gear off the deck.
As I continued my couch potato sailing magazine marathon, I found the publisher writing a series of articles about rebuilding his sailboat. Apparently he had tried to sell it and found no buyers, so took the plunge and began a huge overhaul project that would include all the upgrades he wanted in his next boat. I began to feel better about my own delays and frustrations. Here was a guy with what looked like unlimited resources having the same difficulties I had.
Eventually the publisher completed his rebuild and took the boat south to Mexico. A buyer contacted him and the boat was sold. The reasoning was that the rebuild had created too great a financial burden. The publisher was now boatless.
The huge snowfall hit us along with a nor'easter gale. The water levels in the northern Chesapeake dropped dramatically as the wind blew the water down the bay. There were about 60 cubic yards of snow on the deck of the catamaran. Attached is a picture of a trimaran at the same dock with its own cubic yards of snow. On board the catamaran I found water in the bilge and took out about 20 gallons. The falling water levels in the bay had grounded the boat at the bow and it looked like some water may have entered the boat through scuppers that were normally above the waterline aft, but submerged temporarilly and perhaps leaking due to ice cracking the scupper hoses. The water in the bilge could have also come from the galley pump which hadn't been winterized.
I continued to follow the publisher's quest for a new boat. He commissioned a Shannon motorsailer, which was an odd choice, considering he had sold his old boat due to financial circumstances. He continued to write about the new boat, the design, the choices of systems, and the building process. There began to appear in the magazine some ads for sharing ownership of a world cruising yacht. Apparently the yacht was the new Shannon and apparently there were no takers. The result was publisher Bob once again giving up his boat project due to finances, and once again boatless.
Of course publisher Bob is making money while writing about his boat projects. Hmmm.
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