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 [...]

Beam Replacement

03 June 2009 | Pleasure Cove
Captn Andy/T'storms
Here is another picture of Kaimu's deck structure, the beams under the deck that hold the two hulls together. The beam of interest is the middle cross beam under the aluminum I beam. Last weekend it was removed. How did the structure remain afloat while this was done?
First I have to reveal that I had my right shoulder replaced last November and it has only been about 6 months since the surgery. The prognosis was I would be at 30% strength now in May with 30% range of motion. I was aggressive with my rehab and when I could row up and down Bodkin Creek without pain or weakness, I felt ready to resume normal activities.
My work on the boat continued with renewed energy. Then I found strange white spongy growth on the beam in question. When I scraped it off I could see that I had already, some time ago, gone over the area with a "DA", which meant the growth was coming from the wood and wasn't some kind of caulking put on a surface crack.

I measured the beam and found it was about 8 feet long, the shortest of the crossbeams. It was there just for mast support in the very middle of the deck. The mast itself sits on a longitudinal aluminum I beam that you can see in the picture.
Actually, some time after that picture was taken, the second builder, Keith Lamb, had his welder add structure to the I beam. That included vertical stays for the mast and a wide plate at the front of the beam to take the windlass and cover the chain locker.

When the boat was assembled in 2001, I had all the aluminum powder coated white gloss, including this longitudinal beam. All the alumnimum has been at sea, down to the Keys and back and in 8 years has virtually no deterioration.

I found an 8 foot beam on E-bay and ordered it. It was similar in cross section to the longitudinal beam. We calculated the longitudinal beam could hold the mast and rig without the center cross beam, but the deck sections between the cross beams hang on bolts that pass through the cross beams. In other words, if we remove the bolts to remove the center cross beam, the deck sections attached to it would no longer have any support on that end.

I have a spool of 2200 lb test line that is like a shoelace, 1/8", and triced up the deck sections to the boom gooseneck and used a come along to tension them. When the bolts were removed, they changed position a bit, but could be walked on and stayed put.

The crossbeam also sat on brackets bolted to the inside skins of the hulls. It was only 8 feet long because it did not intrude into the hulls, just sat on these brackets.

Because the boat is in the water and work was performed under the cross deck, there was concern about removing the brackets without providing some alternate support for the cross beam. Also we did not want to lose the brackets. Only one needed to be removed, then the beam would drop into the water on that side and slide out of the other bracket. A safety line was rigged to the bracket from an eyebolt on deck and tensioned with the main halyard.

The bracket bolts were removed and nothing fell into the water or even showed the slightest sign of coming loose. I remember bedding the bracket with 5200 caulk when it was installed. The caulk was holding everything up without any fasteners!

After chiseling the edges of the bracket to get it partially free of the hull, porta power was used to force it from the hull. I was afraid the hull skin itself might come loose. The bracket came loose with a tearing pop sound. Nothing fell into the water or crashed down on workers under the boat. The safety line was slowly eased out, the beam and bracket lowered to the water, and then slid into the water.

When the beam was towed to another area of the dock to be hauled out, the tow line parted when we tried to lift the beam out of the water. The second line also parted. A towing strap finally managed to handle the beam. We couldn't lift it out, the electric bos'n's chair was secured to a bollard and it pulled the beam up to dock level, then it was swung onto the dock. It was very heavy.

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