Wharram Refit Redesign

Discussion in 'Multihulls' started by nimblemotors, Feb 17, 2012.

  1. nimblemotors
    Joined: Jun 2009
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    nimblemotors Senior Member

    Tramps are expensive to buy, but I've made them pretty cheap.
    but yeah its a long bridge to span without supports, so maybe just
    some cedar fencing planks, but covered with some stretched tent canvas
    or old sails to make it comfortable, and not lose to the sea whatever you drop. :)
     
  2. nimblemotors
    Joined: Jun 2009
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    Location: Sacramento

    nimblemotors Senior Member

    She finally arrived at the new home port. It was quite an undertaking to transport a boat 70 miles without working rudders or engine.
    Accused of using it to transport illegal copper by the coast guard,
    and attempting to scuttle it by the sheriff SWAT team, gave me some stories to tell, not to mention one mast that came crashing down during transport.

    So for now, it will sit while I attend to everything I put off for two weeks getting it moved.


    [​IMG]
     
  3. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

    Wow! Tell us more! What a story!
    Did you hip tow the boat? I can see the fresh wood where the mast used to be.

    Illegal copper? How did that go?

    This story needs a huge write up. Very interesting.
     
  4. ImaginaryNumber
    Joined: May 2009
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    Location: USA

    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    NM,
    Do you have any idea how well she sailed with what looks to be a large added central cabin? Is the excess windage problematic?
     
  5. nimblemotors
    Joined: Jun 2009
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    Location: Sacramento

    nimblemotors Senior Member

    I'd say that ugly doghouse was a big issue with windage.
    In the first attempt to tow it I used my 18ft power/ski boat with 150hp outboard and a very stout "ski pole" I built for it. We waited for what was predicted to be a warm and windless day and started out at 6am.
    We had tried a bridle and double 50ft ropes, but the boat would surpentine badly, so we had to get it in pretty close which kept it mostly going straight.

    As we got out into the open bay the wind picked up to maybe 15kts and the seas got rough. We were going against the wind, and it put quite a blow on the boat. My little boat was being tossed around by the rough seas. Then one of the mast came crashing down, and fortunately fell backwards onto the doghouse and not on top of us in the fourwinds,
    and we decided to abort, and got vessel assist to tow it back to the dock.
    He could pull it pretty good even in the rough seas, it was chopping through the waves quite hard, cleaned all the years of barnicles off the hull! And was the first indication the hulls were sound.

    So yes that doghouse was bad, it was a pretty hacked liveaboard addition,
    in fact it covered the area where the outboard went, so in my next attempt I had to remove a lot of wood and improvise a mount for an outboard in it that could steer. This left all kinds of tools in the boat, which the coastguard was sure were used for stealing copper... :)
     
  6. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

    Wow. That's a great story. I don't think I've ever heard such an adventure just moving a boat. If this is any indication, it would appear the boat will bring you plenty of stories in the future.

    That's such a weird accusation from the Coat Guard. Never heard of them saying things like that before.

    All in all, once that dog house is removed and burned (ha ha ha), looks like you found something good.
     
  7. nimblemotors
    Joined: Jun 2009
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    nimblemotors Senior Member

    I'm not sure if you are being facetious or not.
    Apparantly copper theft has become a huge problem, people cutting wires from homes and business and whatnot, so now we have a "war on copper thieves" instead of a drug war. now its a felony (like that means anything to thief) coast guard has intercepted people moving it over water they tell me.
    The derilect boat just looks like something a criminal would use, I can appreciate that point!

    Another red flag to them is that I was unable to make forward progress as I approached the carquinez bridge and the tide had changed.
    The outboard on the boat would go only about 2mph, not sure why, it is an old 2 stroke, oil mix might be off, it might just be weak.
    The tide can go 3.5mph through the straight. I almost made it, but was 2 miles away when it changed, forward progress stopped and the motor quit.
    That is when they boarded me and I got interrogated and criminal background check and a full search. They found tools and "look copper pennies!" a big pile of them left by previous tennant. Gas was leaking and my fire extinguisher invalid, so this was a safety violation and they had to "terminate" my voyage. All the while the current had been pushing us back while they were checking my story of just buying it and moving to a new place, and seeing what "the boss" wanted to do. Well their rules are they can't just leave me after terminating my voyage, and since I couldn't make way in the tide, there were then forced to have to tow me to nearest port! Well by that time, we were pushed back maybe 5-10 miles, and I was told to throw anchor.
    They didn't want to tow with the little boat (although vessel assist had the same rig and had no problem, as I told them), they wanted to get the "41",
    but couldn't leave me alone, so another boat had to come out 10 miles to relieve them so they could go back, and get the 41. And they also had to remove the guns from their boat because they couldn't leave it at port with guns mounted. So they went back removed the guns and came back with the 41 and relieve the other boat, and hooked up a tow line, and towed me the 10 miles back to port. They couldn't take me to the port I setup to stop at because when hip towed it was too wide to fit, so they took me to another port (their home port). This took a long time, it was slow towing me.
    All said and done, they spent 6 hours dealing with the "copper thief",
    which by that time the tide had changed, and I could have made progress again and got to my port. Oh well, they were friendly after my story checked out and I got a free tow (so far, waiting for the fire extinguisher violation charge to appear in the mail..).
    Only problem was I was left in someone elses dock, and the outboard didn't want to run so I could move it across the water to the other side which was empty. Fortunately the boat supposed to be there was elsewhere and didn't complain until we were able to take it the next leg, in which we went back to towing it with my 18ft boat.
     
  8. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

    Again, wow! That's a lot of stuff to happen on such a short trip. I'm not being facetious anywhere in my posts.
     
  9. cavalier mk2
    Joined: Mar 2010
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    cavalier mk2 Senior Member

    Now you need to tell it to Arlo Gutherie so we can get a new version of Alice's Restaurant. Listen to it on you tube and pull out a guitar!
     
  10. nimblemotors
    Joined: Jun 2009
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    Location: Sacramento

    nimblemotors Senior Member

    stern extension

    The mast, boom, rigging and sails that I bought ($150) which were supposed to be from a 40ft boat were not even close.
    The mast measured out to just 34ft. Too small.
    And I'm pretty confident the hulls are sound, so I'm just going ahead and with the redesign to my whacky unorthodox strange rank amature "nobody does that" design which most will hate so I will not say much about it as a whole.

    I want to extend the hulls in back to add motors and propulsion in each hull.
    Given the hulls already exist, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to
    make the rear extension "bolt on". This makes it a completely watertight isolated section of hull, and if made to unbolt, the section can be floated to shore to be worked on, removed, etc.
    I see the downside as added weight to achieve this. where the mating surfaces must be pretty strong. Any examples of this being done before?
     
  11. Cataphract
    Joined: Mar 2012
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    Location: New York/ Cambridge

    Cataphract Mechanical Engineer

    that's a pretty interesting rigging there. Good luck rebuilding it.
     
  12. nimblemotors
    Joined: Jun 2009
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    Location: Sacramento

    nimblemotors Senior Member

    bowsprit

    I've made a model of the boat using the build plans,

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]




    You can see the transom is a flat vertical surface, relatively easy to attach an extension physically, but of course to maintain the integrity of the shape is a different matter. I'm thinking of a relatively small extension that just houses a motor-propeller and rudder setup than can be lowered into the water, so it doesn't effect the hull design shape.

    Now I'm wondering about the bow, and was considering a bowsprit(s).
    I understand a bowsprit is considered part of LOA.
    I'd like to increase the bouyancy in the bow, and considering the bow is fairly blunt, and might I just as well build a sharper bow filled with foam instead
    of a bowsprit. Any opinions?
     
  13. Zootalaws
    Joined: Jul 2012
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    Location: SE Asia

    Zootalaws Junior Member

    Aren't Wharram's usually powered by mounting the engine in the middle?

    My friend's has a long-shaft outboard in a housing just behind the centre beam.
     
  14. Frosty

    Frosty Previous Member

    Well he said he was!!
     

  15. Frosty

    Frosty Previous Member

    Well he said he was!!


    I too would be given a Warram with great reluctance --not from any personal experience you understand but that of a freind who bought one --yes bought one.
    He started taking a bit of rot out here and there,--and then there and here untill he finally stopped at the mast step. His misery could be clearly seen.

    He sailed it to Ko samui where it broke up on the beach.

    Pssst--they are only tied together with string you know.

    I think ide rather have 4 x 50 gallon drums tied together.
     
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