About Me

Summer 2006

My name is Neil Hawkesford and as I approach 50 years of life on this planet I find myself yearning for something more than a ‘normal’ life can offer. Working harder and longer to support owning an overpriced house in an overcrowded country with a ‘Big Brother’ government taxing you for living no longer appeals. There has to be an alternative, a last sanctuary from this ever increasing madness, a place to be free to enjoy the wonders of this earth before it all ends. ‘Gleda’ will be that sanctuary and the seas and oceans will be the place. The adventure begins……….

I am English and am living, working and building my boat right in the centre of England, I take perverse pleasure from building a vessel designed to roam the oceans in a barn just a few miles from the geographic centre of the country, the point furthest from the sea!

So why a Wharram? Well I first discovered them back in 1983 whilst living on and sailing my Silhouette III ‘Morgwas’ in and around Falmouth, Cornwall. I had a mud berth on Church Beach in Penryn near to a strange looking catamaran ‘Ika Roa’ which I subsequently learnt was a Wharram Narai . I seem to recall it was owned by Tim and Heather a couple from Hull who subsequently set off and eventually settled in New Zealand. I also remember another Wharram on the beach for a while but I only remember the name ‘Imagine’. If by any chance this rings a bell with anyone I would love to hear from you. Anyway I was working as delivery crew at the time and getting to sail all manner of racing and cruising monohulls yet strangely the more I sailed these ‘conventional’ boats the more I began to see the Wharrams as being ‘right’ and began to dream of one day owning one.

My own sailing adventures ended in June 1984 whilst attempting a single-handed voyage into Biscay on ‘Morgwas’. I reached my limits long before ‘Morgwas’ reached hers and to my lasting regret abandoned her for the safety of a French fishing boat. (My story ‘Enough is enough’ was published in the October 1985 issue of Yachting Monthly (and you can download a copy here) Subsequently recovered to Brest I was reunited with her only long enough to sell her and, I thought, my sailing days were through.

It was 1996 before I sailed again when my interest in Wharrams resurfaced. I joined the PCA and did a couple of trips, one round the East Coast from Great Yarmouth to Chichester with John and Rosemary Gonco aboard ‘Wind Cat’ a big Tehini (I think) and a Bristol to Exmouth trip aboard a Pahi? called ‘Polly’? I feel really bad I can’t remember the details but again please get in touch if you remember me.

Despite my renewed interest life led me down a different path, and the sea and Wharrams again became a distant memory but now in 2006 I find myself in a position to finally take control and do something about it. Twenty three years after first seeing a Wharram I am going to build one and, not only lay the ghost of my previous failed voyage but make my long held dream a reality.

Oct 06 Update

Thanks to some feedback I now know that ‘Imagine’ is Steve Turners Oro and is currently being rebuilt in Plymouth UK, John Gonco is still sailing his Tehini ‘Windcat’. I also heard from Don Brazier in New Zealand who knew Tim & Heather Whelen well when they regularly sailed around Hauraki Gulf.