“Lindsay consistently impressed on us that most challenges were just temporary phenomena which could be solved and to have no fear in going where others had not yet been.” 

As the techniques developed so did the control lines and on today’s craft, the Patí de Vela ‘skates’ feature an array of control systems that can alter the forestay tension on each tack (the boats have two forestays, one mounted on each hull) to control the bend of the mast and aid direction.

“Twenty miles an hour under sail, which is by far the greatest speed ever attained with canvas and a hull drawn through water, has been made by a catamaran…A sail on the new craft, which carries a modern canvas rig, is said to be not easily forgotten, particularly in a fresh breeze.”

There used to be one lying neglected in the corner of every off the beaten track boatyard north of Gabo… but perhaps their desirability has grown over the last decade.

Regular readers may have noticed that here at SWS our interest in Wharram Catamarans has morphed into a minor obsession over the last year or so. Well how could we not sit up and notice this surfing adventure film released today in the UK.

When I first became interested, I thought that this taciturn Englishman was working in a space where eccentricity meets the counterculture…. Well-meaning hippies, who were fun to follow, but not to be taken too seriously. But the more I learned the more appreciative I became.

When one of these massive, shiny, floating apartment blocks is made out of (mostly) timber then its worth reading about, and taking on board the possibilities.

Sure, the videos still have a slightly annoying millennial sensibility, but by combining some authentic James Wharram footage she makes me think that she would have fitted in well aboard TANGAROA in 1955.

James was a trailblazer, a fighter with great determination and vision. From a young age he followed his passions – to roam the hills – for fair politics – for intelligent women – to sail the seas – to prove the Polynesian double canoe an ocean worthy craft – to become a Man of the Sea.

The Wharram Catamaran has always held a fascination not because its a thing of beauty but because they reek of the promise of adventure. And not a modern day adventure clutching a GPS and Sat Phone, but a 1960’s hippy adventure with free love, tropical islands bare tanned skin, and the rejection of boundaries imposed by a disapproving society.