A Professionally Built Tiki 30

Just a little over a week ago I wrote in these pages about my friend, David Halladay and his marine carpentry company Boatsmith in Jupiter, Fl. I mentioned that David was ready to take orders to start building large wood-epoxy composite boats, and especially how he would like to build a Wharram catamaran. Well, he's gone from dreaming to doing in the space of that week and his crew of craftsmen in the shop behind his house have already cut out and prepared all the parts for both hulls of a Wharram Tiki 30. This is exciting news to me as the Tiki 30 is one of the designs I really like and one that I almost decided to build before realizing the Tiki 26 would be better for my own needs. David is not building this one to keep, either. It is being built on spec and you can contract early to have it custom finished the way you want it, or he will build it exactly to plan and sell it afterwards. Either way, you can be assured that this Tiki 30 will be built to the highest standards and with the best materials under the direction of a master craftsman.

The Tiki 30 building crew at Boatsmith: Nicolas, Pascual, David Halladay (center) Tomas, and Alejandro looking over the plans on the morning of the first day.

As a boat carpenter who has worked for David many times in the past on various projects, I naturally wanted to get involved in this one, so I'm heading down there tomorrow to spend three days working in the shop and to assist in the assembly and setting up of the two hulls. Since I've done this recently on my own Tiki 26, maybe my experience will be helpful. The other aspect of the project that I'm involved in is helping David to document the build by creating a blog about it, similar to my Tiki 26 blog Element II

Visit the new blog and check out the design work I've done on it. David and I will both be posting updates there, and in the future most will probably come from him. But while I'm in Florida I plan to take a lot of new photos in the shop and maybe some video clips for You Tube as well. I will also keep you posted here, but for the latest on this professionally built Tiki 30, keep an eye on: Pro-Built Tiki 30

As for me, I'm looking forward to some warm south Florida weather and seeing palm trees again....at least for a few days!