Building a Wharram Hitia 17

[teaksmith]

Just found your thread here. Great project you've got going. Before restoring a Tiki 21 and beginning my current Tiki 26 build, I built a Hitia 17 back in 1998. It's a great beach cruiser and was surprisingly fast. I made a hard deck in two sections for the trampoline area between the mast and aft beams, which made it drier and provided space for a tent. I put a tramp in the forward area between the mast and front beams, which served as a "front porch" for the tent. I used a basic trailer frame and designed two removable beams with rollers mounted that I could quickly attach at the ramp. The hulls were then moved out by lifting one end, then the other out to the cradles on the long beams. I got the process down to 45 minutes from arrival to launch, making it feasible to daysail off the trailer, but mostly I went out camping for several days at a time when I used the boat.

[kharder]

Hey Scott,

We have been following your blog and get a lot of inspiration for how neat and clean your work is. Can't wait to see Element 2 completed. We are planning on the exact same layout, sold rear deck and mesh for the front for the same reasons of dryness and keeping holding the tent better. Concerned about adding weight but hopefully we can come up with something light and simple.

We are just now getting into the serious epoxy work, I had no idea how tedious it is keeping all those fillets even and tidy. Going to have to go back and fair and sand again but it will be worth it once the paint is on.

[teaksmith]

To keep the solid deck light, I built it hollow, sort of like an interior door with stiffening stringers inside and glass outside. If I were doing it now, I would use foam core with 4mm okoume skins. I was concerned about weight as well, but it was never an issue with the Hitia. I mostly camp-cruised solo, but once with a friend and all of our gear. We camped on the beach rather than in the deck tent, however, as the boat is a bit crowded for two at anchor.

I'm hoping to launch Element II this year. Working on her right now.

[kharder]

Another rainy day working in the basement instead of outside, but I made some progress on the mast step for the main beam. The top of the main beam is doubled up under the mast step with a block that tapers on each end "to a pleasing shape" according to the plans. I marked a shape that looked good on a cutoff and got to shaping. At first I thought I would bring the edges to a point, but then decided to leave the edge flat at about an inch wide.





I've recently found how much I like working with an old draw knife I picked up a long time ago and this was another good use for it. It's 14" along the blade and 24" between the handles so a bit big but very handy.





In no time at all the blank was worked down to shape and then planed to the lines.





The next step was to taper and bevel the edges to lighten up the appearance of the mast step block. The top edge of the bevel was drawn on freehand to miss the blocks that form the step so that they have a flat mounting surface. The rest was trimmed down by eye with the draw knife.





Here it is getting pretty close to the final shape, but not quite even. This was all with the draw knife so far.





A bit more work with a sanding block and it was done and ready for a test fit. The short piece didn't want to take the bend but eventually settled in nicely. I'm happy with how the tapered ends turned out and how they flow with the curve of the beam.





That's it for now on the mast step until the bottom of the beam is glued on. This beam is getting pretty close to done, two more to go.

[kharder]

A quick update on the main beam. The bottom was glued on and cured over night.





The compression blocks pretty much assure that it the top and bottom are parallel, though in some cases there was some room for adjustment based on small changes in the clamping location particularly on the ends.





And here is the main beam all glued up and man is this thing sturdy. I'm feeling better about these beams being the only thing keeping us out of the water.





Now we just have to keep up the sequence: glue, wait, fillet, wait, glue, wait, fillet, wait ...

[kharder]

Wharram seems to like interesting mast steps, and the Hitia 17 is no different. The mast as feet that lock it to the beam fore and aft and "locating chocks" that locate the base of the mast laterally. The front block also prevents the mast from rotating and the middle portion gives a curved initial contact point for the foot of the mast to hook onto as the mast is rotated up into place.





So here is the plan for the front block, I have made it a bit wider than the sketch which I think looks better and will give more epoxy surface area to prevent shearing along the glue joint.





Now the mast step doubling block and the block are epoxied on. The block liked to slide around particularly with the clamps on the angled faces. It took some adjusting but eventually it sat centered and flush with the top surface. The sequence here was fillets, doubling block then mast foot block.





Now that the epoxy has cured it's time to make sure the proportions and shapes look right. Overall I'd say the mast step is looking pretty good and I seem to be getting the hang of the fillets. The second round worked out much neater than the first though you can see that i need to go back and clean up some of the excess.





We're still struggling to find a free day with good weather to do the hulls, but they are poised and waiting should the opportunity arise.

[Dan St Gean]

Looks good!

[kharder]

The big day of gluing is finally here. The temperature is up and no rain in the forecast means it's time to get busy on our gluing ordeal. With any luck we can get all the rounds of gluing in one after the other in one drawn out process and then be done with it.


First the hulls need to come back out of the basement one more time and get set up at working height.





The aft stems were never stitched and so I attempted to do that while also pulling the panels into alignment. There is so much tension in the hull panels from the twisting that I couldn't get the stitches to hold so I went with screws instead which worked out much easier and pulled the hull panels in tight with the stem. This photo is after the gluing surfaces got a coat of raw epoxy to soak down into the nooks and crannies so that is where the small drips are coming from.





Now is also the time to check that everything is straight and level. With hardly any adjusting the hulls were perfectly lined up.





The gaps along the keel and stem are epoxied with a milled fiberglass and silica mix. These batches were mixed pretty loose so that they can settle into the gaps and make sure there are no voids.





More of the first glue round along the keel ...





Now we wait until this layer sets up and then the big fillets along the keel and bulkheads will follow. After the fillets dry if there is any daylight left we will epoxy in the fiberglass tape over the keel fillet.


To be continued ...

[kharder]

It's been a long time since we were able to work on the boat and it was time for a big push. The last big push only accomplished about a quarter of what we set out to do. But the days have gotten much longer and today we weren't going to stop until all the fillets were in both hulls and all the keel joints were fiber glassed.

The first hull was already half filleted, so the remaining fillets went pretty quickly. Part of the speed increase was because we moved our epoxy mixing station outside near where we were working to cut down on trips to the basement.



Before we knew it the first hull was fully filleted and ready for fiberglass. Most of the keel joints were fresh so we were able to press in the fiberglass tape while the epoxy was the consistency of a firm gel. This made smoothing out any bumps or edges easy and let the fiberglass sit nice and smooth against the fillet without any sanding.



Then we brushed on epoxy with a 2" chip brush and worked the tape with a gloved finger like a squeegee. All in all this was much easier than we thought it would be. The only trouble was a bit of unraveling at the ends when we were a bit rough with the tape.



By lunch time the first hull was filleted and taped and curing in the sun. So we could take a small break, looked out over our work and get psyched up for the next round. The second hull had no epoxy at all, and we had about 6 hours of daylight to finish it.



After lunch the first hull was cured enough to move off the saw horsed and finish curing in the sun.



The second hull went just like the first with two exceptions. First, at the filleting stage we filled the stems in three to four passes to prevent excess heat buildup. Second, we worked one 'bay' at a time doing keel, then bulkheads and then glassed the keel. That way as we moved down the boat we left the previous segment complete. Here we have just completed the middle segment and are about to put another layer in the stems.



By the time we brushed epoxy on the last piece of fiberglass the sun was hanging low in the sky but we had reached our goal. We cleaned up our mess and called it a day.

[James Corduan]

This looks like its going to be a fun boat, can't wait to see it on the water.

[jim_cricket]

Clean looking fillets, and no splooge all over the inside of the boat. Nice job!
Cricket

[kharder]

Thanks for the complements, I promise it looks rougher in person.

[kharder]

Another long day trying to keep the momentum going. The hulls were already set up at their proper distance to get a sense of scale so we couldn't help but throw the main beam on to see how it looks. But enough daydreaming, today we are making the floors, fore decks, aft decks and side decks.





The first pieces cut were the floors. These two floors should be almost the same length according to the plans, but bulkhead 5 which forms the aft face of the aft most floor is about 5" too far forward but so are the beam support blocks. Not sure how this happened but it must have been during the initial layout so we're going with it and will change some of the details on the hatches to make it all look right. The mast will be in the right place and that's what counts so hopefully we don't miss the extra seating space too much. In the end I don't think anyone will notice.



Here is our process for making the main decks. We start with a piece about the right size and put a straight edge up against the bulkhead. Clamps hold it tight against the bulkhead and centered across the hull.



The stem location is marked on the underside of the plywood then the slot is cut out and fit it over the stem handle. Next it's pretty straight forward to mark the edges of the hull and trim it down with the jig saw.



Speaking of the jig saw, this is my new Bosch saw which got quite a workout today. I can't believe we made it this far without one and this one is very heavy duty which helps with making nice smooth cuts.



So after all that jig sawing this is what we have to show for it: noth aft decks, both aft floors, three side decks, one front floor and one front deck.



Next up: more epoxy coating, gluing on more fir stringers and back to the lumber store for another sheet of Okoume plywood. Pretty soon we'll be painting the interior and under sides of the decks to get them ready for glue and fiber glassing over the floors.

[chill]

great boat. I actually have the plans but have not built yet.

[JimD]

Starting to look like a boat.

[kharder]

Building a boat involves a lot of firsts, and today was the first time we applied paint to the boat. We're using bright white Easypoxy for just about everything that isn't varnished until we sort out a final color scheme - likely white and grey. The outsides will be rolled and tipped, but for the insides we're just brushing.





The sections under the fore and aft decks is fair game for paint at this point as is the area under the seats. These are going to be too hard to get to once the decks and floors are glued on so we're painting them in advance.





We could have just left it with an epoxy coating but it seems prudent to protect the wood as well as possible in case any water works its way into the bilge. The paint is such a bright white it's hard to look at in the sunlight and kind of hard to photograph too. It should be fine for the topsides but it's giving us second thoughts about using it for the deck.





Once the paint dried a bit we flipped the hull over and started fairing around the keel to prep for fiberglassing. All the gaps around the keel are filled with thickened epoxy as well as fairing around the skeg.





The stem is also faired but we stopped short of where the rigging will attach using a heavy duty u-bolt. We put a smaller fillet at the u-bolt location to make room for the backing plates and will blend it into the rest of the stem fairing later.





The last bit of fairing was to tie the stem into the ends of the sheer stringers. Once the epoxy dries we can sand the corner down to make a nice curve.





We also used the extra bits of epoxy to fill the screw, staple and stitching holes. With a bit of sanding the hull should have a nice smooth surface for the fiberglass to lay over. We left some air bubbles in the keel fiberglassing that needed filling so it would be nice to prevent that on the hulls if we can.

[Zootalaws]

Are there trailers that let you slide the hulls out to assemble on the trailer? It's too wide to trailer with the beams attached (~10' beam)?

I've bought a tired Hitia 17 to restore. It all fitted on the roof of my Grand Cherokee, no bother. I could do it on my own, with a little fiddling, but it's a lot easier with two. For continuous beach use, I will make a small plywood cradle to sit the hulls in and for the beams and mast to locate in, just slide them up from the rear of the car and locate. I can use the factory sliding rack mounts to hold it all in place, easier than buying a rack. I have carried a lot of timber using a small frame sitting on the rack rails - they are damned strong.

Something like this:

Cartopper.png

[seedy]

Just found my way back, great progress!