James Wharram, world voyager in Polynesian catamarans whose passion for boat-design went with an enthusiasm for free love – obituary He went into business making his ‘double canoes’ for people in what ...

On 27 September 1955, James Wharram set sail from Falmouth in a 23½ft flat-bottomed double canoe (now called a catamaran) that he had built himself at a cost of £200, with no engine, and none of the ...

James Wharram, who has died aged 93, stunned the boating world in 1955 when he built the Tangaroa, a flimsy-looking 23 ft canoe-stern catamaran based on boats built by the ancient Polynesians, and, ...