Wharram Builders and Friends

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Our catamaran Tiki30 “PHA” designed by James Wharram has been built by myself in Martinique (West Indies) between the beginning of 2002 and the end of 2004.
After six months of sailing in the Caribbean around the Martinique we have crossed the Atlantic toward the Brittany in June 2005.
Since we had a lot of sailings toward the UK and along the Brittany coasts.
PHA has demonstrated her very good sailing qualities at all the point of sails and in a lot of different seas conditions

PHA has been built in good conditions under a shelter in using an epoxy designed for tropical climate and high marine grade plywood with all plies in sapele.

General datas of “PHA”

Type : Catamaran Wharram Tiki30 n°119 registered under Belgium flag the 25th November 2004

Year built : 2002 (launched in 2004)

Construction material :

High marine grade plywood with all plies in sapele + epoxy + glass cloth + stringers in mahogany for the hulls and in spruce fir (épicéa in French) for the pod, the masts and the wishbones.
The beams are built with the same plywood + stringers in “grignon” (light hard wood from French Guyana).

Hulls datas :

L.O.A.: 9,15m L.W.L : 7,70m Beam : 5,00m Draft : 0,70m
Displacement empty (ready to sail with no cargo and no crew) : 1,5T
Displacement loaded : 2T to 2,5T

“V” hulls with long keels

All the boat can be completely dismantle. The hulls are fixed to the beams with lashings which allow to absorb a part of the stress of the hull movements.

Colors : white hulls with a blue line at top, yellow for the cabin hull side and for the pod sides.
Anti-fouling paint in Coppercoat green.

Sails : 2 double Swing wing sails of 20m² each (see more details further).

Accommodations :
Port hull cabin : at the entrance bottom a little kitchen area with an alcohol stove and all the kitchen gears for 6 people. And in the front part a little double berth with lockers under.

Starboard hull cabin : at the entrance bottom a little toilette area and in the front part a little double berth with lockers under.

Pod :
A cockpit with a big seat-locker at port for the safety gear, petrol cans, sea clothes, ropes etc. The starboard seat-locker has no bottom to receive the HB engine with its tank.
In front of the cockpit is the cabin pod with a navigation desk at the starboard entrance and a little shelf at the opposite side and seats which can be converted in a large double berth.


Motorisation :
One HB Honda 4 strokes 15HP long shaft BF15LD (manual start) with a high thrust propeller mounting on a movable seat under the starboard cockpit locker.
Maximum speed under power about 9kts and cruise speed between 4 to 6 kts,
A 12l tank is in the engine locker + a second same 12l tank in the port locker + plastic cans.


Water :
There are 2 supple water tank of 50l under the lateral seats of the cabin pod for the kitchen and the toilet.
For the drinking water, we put some plastic bottles of water under the hull berths.

Electricity :
One large supple solar panel UNISOLAR 12V-Max 32W with a regulator + one lead battery of 60AH for the main electricity circuit (lights+navigation desk) which can be recharged so with the HB engine.
A second little rigid solar panel of 5W + a second lead battery of 60AH to recharge the little removable batteries and to furnish power to the mobile GPS, mobile phones, handle VHF.

Navigation lights :
Tri color LED light on top of the port mast.

Radio :
A mobile VHF NAVICOM RT211 able to be connected on the VHF antenna situated on the top of the starboard mast.

Navigation instruments :
Main compass PLASTIMO Olympic 100 + one bearing compass PLASTIMO IRIS 50
Wind speed + direction TARGET2
Depth sounder TARGET2
Speed + distance log TARGET2
The sensors of the sounder and log are mounted on a removable arm in the engine locker.

Security :
6 life jackets + 6 harnesses
1 lifebuoy + flash light
1 fire extinguisher in the kitchen
1 mobile hand water pomp
1 emergency hatch near the entrance of each hull and in the bottom cabin pod
Buoyancy : the stems and sterns are filled with removable pieces of foam from the hatches in the stem and stern bulkheads.

Anchoring :
An anchor box is seating on the beams in front of the pod on the boat axis which holds a windlass ROYAL and inside contains a flat anchor FOB of 12kg, a plough anchor of 12kg, 30m of 8mm chain, 100m of 14mm nylon rope.

Rig :
Being very enthusiast with the easiness to handle the junk rigs : ability to reduce it very easily and quickly at all the points of sail ( even at downwind) I asked to Sunbird Marine (an UK expert in the junk rigs) to design for my Tiki30 their advanced junk rig : the Swing wing rig. The sail plan has been designed by BOSWELL design, a partner of Sunbird Marine.

This rig adds to the handle easiness of the junk rig, the powerful of a full sail profile which is asymmetric and reversible (a double sail is shaped by inside wishbones which are ended with swing battens). In order to increase its efficacy, after trials, I replaced the straight swing battens by light swing wishbones. So now the sail leeward side is a continuous curve from the luff to the leech.

The sails have been made by Christopher SCANES, a partner of Sunbird Marine ,
Each sail has a 20m² area and is composed of a double 4oz polyester sail with cream color.

The 2 masts holding these sails are totally free without shrouds. They are fixed in each hull in front of the main beam between the keel and the deck.

For a catamaran a free rig avoid to stress the hulls and beams with high tensions in the shrouds and high compression in the masts (even at rest in a harbour).

The masts are built with 12 wood stringers around round pieces of wood with 12 facets spacede all the 50cm. All is glued with epoxy and wrapped with glass cloth + epoxy. This structure, which is very similar to a bamboo, is very strong.

The flexibility of the masts is a good advantage to increase the security of a catamaran because it absorbs a part of the energy of the gusts.


Inside a sail when PHA was on her mooring : we can see the junction of each double wishbone



Close hauled sailing. Look at the difference between the two sides of the sail : the leeward sail is well shaped due to a good difference of pressure between the ambient pressure inside the sail and the low pressure outside, the difference of pressure is not so high on the windward sail.



Close hauled sailing



Reach sailing



Reach sailing



General view when at rest in the Port Cohe Marina



Grounded in Brittany




PHA surfing on the north Atlantic waves



In red the route of PHA from Martinique to Brittany



You can see PHA at her mooring on the river Aulne just at the bottom of the belvedere of Rosnoen which is situated at 4km of “Le Faou” in the Finistere (West Brittany in the south of Brest in France), or 48°15,6'N - 4°13'W.

Requested price 33000 €uros

To visit PHA, contact me :
Bertrand FERCOT
14 Bodivy
29450 SIZUN
France

Email : bertrand.fercot@orange.fr

House phone : 0033 (0)298 688 611
Mobile : 0033 (0)620 972 802 or 0033 (0)612 950 805

Here are a few links for more details on the building and sailings of PHA :

For more pictures and details of the building of PHA have a look at this blog :
http://wharrambuilders.ning.com/profiles/blogs/building-of-the-tiki...

For sailing with PHA have a look at this blog :
http://wharrambuilders.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sailing-with-pha-tik...


For videos of PHA sailing have a look at :

- PHA surfing on the waves during her Atlantic crossing in June 2004 :
http://wharrambuilders.ning.com/video/2195841:Video:1963

- PHA sailing during the 2008 Brest festival of the sea :
http://wharrambuilders.ning.com/video/2195841:Video:1959

- PHA sailing during the Junk Rig Association near Southampton in June 2009 :
http://wharrambuilders.ning.com/video/pha-june-2009-uk-junk-rig

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The sale of PHA has just been finalized yesterday.

I'm sad to leave PHA after so much building-sailing time and experiments.

The good news is now I can concentrate all my attention and I have almost enough money to finish her big sister "Grand PHA" in using the experiments I made with PHA + new ones as more cambered lenticular sail shapes and hybrid parallel propulsion.

I wish a great sailing life to PHA in the hands of her new owner and to have the opportunity to have a "PHA" meeting one day.

Bertrand

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