what choice>

[steve martland]

Hi all... first post ...and its a matter of opinion ... I would like to hear yours

for the past few years I've been browsing for a suitable boat to continue my adventure so rudely interupted by a shipwreck in a storm many years ago ( but that is another story ).

after checking out many ... the final choice has come to ( I think ) to either a wharram tiki 38

or a tangaroa mk IV.. of which there seems to be a few on the market..

I did charter a tiki 30 earlier this year to give myselfe a taste of the wharram experience.. but I feel the 30 is just a tad too small for a permenant live aboard situation  ( a lovely boat though)

I will be mainly sailing 1 up so any input from all you seasoned wharramists will be greatly appreciated as to size ..type of rig.. neccesary aids  etc..

cheers steve

  

[Ann and Neville Clement]

HI Steve,

   I have singlehanded quite a bit in a cutter rig monohull (25,000 nm) and Nev and I currently have our schooner rig Tiki 46 which we have sailed hard the past 10 years (47,000 nm) and it has the same rig as the Tike 38.  Today I sailed all day in a schooner rigged Tiki 38 which my good friend George just bought.  Nice.

   Single handing is a special kind of sailing with its own set of disciplins.  I think a cutter rigged Tangaroa Mk IV might be my own choice because it might be easier to manage and is just a bit smaller than the Tiki 38 but it will not have the volume of the Tiki 38.  Certainly keeping the size of the boat on the smaller size will help a single hander because sail handling will be easier with the smaller sails.  If you have roller reefing for the big jib in a cutter, you can make it bigger or smaller easy to cope safely with more or less winds.  A single hander on a long passage will need to be able to cope with injury etc and roller reefing a jib is easy breezy.  The trades are lovely in a cat.  A bit too rolly polly for comfort in a monohull.  Twice Nev and I have crossed the Atlantic in the trades with only the roller reefing jib and self steering.  So simple!

     Luckily the Wharram line has a lot of designs and you can make a case for any one of them so another person might disagree with me.  But go ahead and look again at the Tangaroa Mk IV.  It is a nice design and I know some folks still prefer the classic designs.  We all daydream of different boats and I can easily see myself in a cutter rig Tangaroa mk IV with jiffy reefing on the main and maybe a club foot staysail... that would be my choice for single handing.  But let's hear from the others because I am and old fashioned old lady and likely there will be interesting disagreements. 

     All the best,  Ann