Good Ideas

[boatsmith]

Noc Tolay has just posted some photos of his mew Tiki 46. he also posted some photos of his Tiki 30. When we were building our Tiki 30 I looked at every Wharram photo that I could find anywhere. I filed all of the ones that had things that I liked. Far and away the boat that provided the most inspiration and nice features was Nok Tolay. I liked the cockpit, the bimini, the aft ladder setup, the interior finish, the slatted deck. I took these ideas and did the best I could with them. I would encourage anybody building a Wharram to check out the many photos of Nok Tolay. There are many good ideas there. Thanks for sharing and helping me to build a better boat than I would have without this information. David

[Marty Peters]

Hi David,

Glad you got some inspiration from Nok Talay, I am really impressed with your tiki 30, it really is a work of art and i think that you have one of the best bimini's i have seen on a tiki 30, although after persevering with the sunbrella i really prefer the hard top that we made as i found the sunbrella sagged and collected water that dripped right down our necks, but our bimini was flat not curved as yours is..
One thing i never got around to was making an easy to use fold away deck-tent / dodger that would make the tiki 30 an all weather boat. My biggest complaint was that when it rained it was miserable. I really wanted to make something that would provide all weather protection whilst at anchor that could be popped up in seconds so everyone could hang out in the cockpit and not away down on the bunks. I have the idea's in my head but never got to make them reality.

The Large hatches above the bunks were a godsend, we could open them up and gaze at the stars and if it rained they could be closed in an instant.... That is one change to the plans that i would encourage any tiki 30 builders to consider. We also found that when the hatches were closed the bunks got really hot and humid very quickly. we actually had a calibrated "stick" that could be used to prop open the hatches at all different levels so even when raining the large hatch could be cracked open and thus we had some airflow and avoided the huge humidity increase that tropical downpours produce.

Gunther Nutt at seascape in phuket built Nok Talay back in 2002, and was responsible for many of the changes / improvements, and we supplied plenty of feedback to Gunther to help improve and solve some of the niggling little things that didn't work quite as expected... I think Gunther has built 8 or 9 tiki 30's since Nok Talay and i'm sure everyone of them has been better than the last. James and Hanneka visited us in Koh Phangan in , i think, 2003, and were very impressed with what gunther created.
I will take credit for designing the swim ladder though! The ladder should be included in the plans as it makes swimming from the boat so easy and adds very little weight. Its a great place where everyone hangs out in the water hanging from the nets.

I would have loved to be able to afford a tiki 46 from gunther but alas, funds only permitted me to buy the tiki 46 "shark' in south africa. She is solid but very rough and needs loads and loads of work but we are progressing nicely and should have the hull sides sanded back to fibre by next week. The antifouling is proving a bit tough to remove but we'll get there... If anyone has any 'Must have" tips please let me know!

I will be sad when Nok Talay is finally sold, ( i have a few people interested so get in quick!) as she really is a fantastic boat that has given us so much pleasure over the last years, but we have outgrown her and needed something bigger to explore further afield - and we don't get much further than the wild south african coast!

On a good note, i have pulled the boat out in St francis Bay and when we first sailed into the tiny port, lo and behold there was another tiki 46 called "Grace" sat in one of the berths. I contacted the owner and after inspecting her she is another beautiful work of art that i will be copying many of the great features - she did take 11 years to finish though! Dave the owner also tells me that there are 3, yes 3 more tiki 46's under construction here in the eastern cape and i look forward to hopefully having a look at them over the next few months. Thailand is full of wharram's but i think South Africa has even more! If there are any other wharram owners or prospective owners you are more than welcome to come and have a look at "Shark" ( we will be renaming her! )
Maybe we should even try to arrange a wharram meet somewhere!

If anyone needs any advice on what worked and what didn't with Nok Talay please post and i'll do the best to help. One thing that we never used was the sink in the galley - complete waste of time in my opinion as it was to small, never drained properly and we always did the washing up on deck....We ended up using the sink as a storage for all the tall bottles, washing liquid, ketchup etc... i will say though that we went through hundreds of sets of cutlery as it invariably got thrown overboard with the dirty water!

Cheers

Marty

[boatsmith]

Hi Marty,
I agree with you about the sunbrella top for the bimini. Ours does not sag but it chafe quickly if anything rubs it against the tube frame. Our next one will have a lightweight foam/glass top. I too have some ideas in my head about an enclosure for the cockpit attaching to the bimini. This would increase the comfort level during rain immensely. The sink to plans is worthless IMO. We also use it for storage only. We put a cutout in the counter and it holds a 3 gal paint bucket. We have a foot pump mounted below that draws from the water tank under the bunk. We usually wash on the tramp/ swim ladder and then rinse below. The aft tramp swim ladder arrangement is indeed totally cool.
Enjoy the transformation of Shark. I and surely many others eagerly anticipate seeing how you handle the challenges in front of you. Cheers, Dav

id