Howdy

[Ben Wertsch]

Just wanted to say Hi and introduce myself. I'm interested in the Wharram designs and philosophy so I thought I'd try building one. My dream Wharram would be the Tiki 38 but I wanted to start with a smaller project and so got the Hitia 17 plans.

I'm lucky to have a 20X25' garage space to use for the build, so I can build the entire thing indoors and not have to worry too much about weather. I started the build about 3 weeks ago and have less than 15 hours in the project so far. I've done most of the plywood cutting and I'm about ready to put down the first coat of epoxy on the plywood parts, perhaps this weekend. 

I feel I made pretty good speed initially, but have slowed down a lot due to a lack of funds for lumber! Hopefully I'll be able to by a few boards this weekend and resume working. I figure that as the project continues a bit I'll see my rate of income exceed the working pace so this won't happen again, but it is a tad annoying.

I really hope to be sailing the finished Hitia 17 by October of this year if not a little sooner. We'll see. I have a blog where I'll keep track of the progress. You can check it out www.goferal.com. 

Build on!

[Ben Wertsch]

Well, the build continues and I'm probably within 3 weeks till launch. Have a few things to figure out. 1) How to register the boat, as my state makes it a bit of a pain to register homebuilt boats, but requires it. 2) How to launch the assembled boat and retrieve it out of the river utilizing the fairly steep boat ramps. The full assembled boat is too wide to drive down the road, and I want to be able to assemble it out of the way of the ramps which can be quite busy on weekends. One solution might be to assemble it in the parking lot out of the way, then drag it onto extensions and then launch it. 

Finally, I need to acquire an engine, as I'll be using this boat  a lot on a river and less on the lake. In fact, I haven't even started on the mast.

My boat is not as nice as some of the Hitias I've seen on the net (maybe none of them actually) but its getting to be very exciting as the launch day draws near.  In fact, I might try rowing it around a small pond or having  some boat tow it a couple of miles upriver just to play with it until I can get it registered, and then be able to legally put a sail or engine on it. 

[Ben Wertsch]

Howdy folks. I did launch my boat in a sort of finished state and its is probably the worst Wharram you've ever seen. I'm almost embarrassed to show anybody. Truth is, work got too busy and I felt that I was spending too much time working on the boat vs spending family time, so I just took what I had and threw it in the river.   

FYI, if anyone plans on using their Hitia 17 on a river or otherwise feels that you do not need a 10 foot wide boat, use 4X4's. Can't tell you how much easier it is to just slap a few 4x4s in the sockets and lash this heap together.

I really want to thank those who helped me by the way.  I'm sure you are horrified to see what you helped to create, but I couldn't have launched this vessel without the assistance you provided.