A menage a trois on the high seas ...was there ever a wilder rover?
Two naked German deckhands and as many as five women on the go at one time. No wonder British adventurer James Wharram, who’s died aged 93, was infamous for so much more than his daredevil Atlantic crossings
look so very happy and healthy.’ Not that James cared.
‘What really got “them” was that “my girls” were not only good at sailing and navigation, but very good at building boats, too. And in addition, they looked beautiful,’ he said.
So, ignoring all the winks and nudges, the trio got to work building the marginally sturdier 40 ft Rongo, named after the Polynesian god of war, to sail back home again. Born in 1928, the son of a builder, James was never one to blend in with the other boys from his council estate.
As a child, he read obsessively, and from the age of 12 — when he was introduced to sailing on a trip on the Isle of Skye — almost all the books he checked out of Manchester Central Library were about boats. ‘I decided what I wanted to do was the sail the oceans,’ he said. ‘But specifically in boats in the ancient Polynesian construction of two joined canoes.’
Technical college was ditched when, for his 19th birthday, he received a passport for a climbing holiday in Switzerland.
It was here that his adventuring truly began — and not just up mountains.
His first love affair was with a Swiss girl who shared his birthday. Then there was the young Viennese psychologist whom, James claimed, saw him as ‘a wild, primitive sexual animal’; an actress who cost him a job when he missed a sailing to hook up with her; and Pat, an American who sent him a book called Boat Building In Your Own Backyard as a goodbye gift.
From then on, his passions were twofold — women and recreating the perfect Polynesian fishing boat.
He took jobs everywhere he could to learn his craft: on a Thames barge, in the stores at Thornycroft boat-builders and on a trawler off the west coast of Ireland.
He built the Tangaroa in 1955 while working on building sites where they called him ‘professor’ because he wore glasses and read sailing books during every tea and lunch break.
Having sailed to Germany and back, he prepared Tangaroa for its Atlantic crossing at Falmouth, despite endless warnings it would never succeed.
Even his father declared: ‘I wouldn’t sail that contraption on a pond in a park.’
The women, meanwhile, popped up, as if by magic, wherever he went. He met Ruth, a German au pair several years his senior in 1951 when he was pottering around the Lake District.
Three years later, he literally swam into Jutta, the daughter of an economics expert in the West German government, while practising underwater techniques in a pool in England.
All three had little interest in the dreary grey monogamy of post-war Britain and set up house together building boats.
After the nightmares of their first crossing in 1956, it’s a wonder any of them were up for the return.
But they were — and it was far worse.
It took nearly ten weeks in terrible weather, their food ran out and they survived on scraps for the last fortnight.
But they did it, the first West-toEast crossing of the Atlantic by a catamaran.
On their return they established a thriving business in self-build James Wharram designs, first in Pembrokeshire, where his entourage expanded to five ladies, and later Cornwall.
Of course, it wasn’t all peace and love at Chez Wharram.
While he could be funny, loving, engaging and make quick, sometimes life-or-death decisions at sea, on shore he was lost.
‘He can be the most useless and stupid man, incapable of finding his own shirt,’ said Jutta.
He never learned to drive and left all the finances, cooking, cleaning and shoe cleaning to the women.
The first major road bump came in 1961 when Jutta, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from her wartime experiences at the hands of the Red Army, could suddenly cope no more and took her life, aged just 24.
Ruth and James were devastated. They limped on — caring for little Hannes — until others joined his entourage and filled the gap.
Hanneke first met James when she was just 14 and on a camping trip with her Dutch, boat-mad family: ‘My father was a sailor — we all were — and had read about James.’
They became an item five years later when he was in his 30s: ‘There was obviously a spark there.
‘At the time he was living with several other women — including the wonderful Ruth — so I joined a group, which I found rather attractive.’
They stayed together and Hanneke is mother to James’s second son, Jamie. Hanneke credits Ruth — rather than James — as the person who made it all work so well, because she made the whole set-up really welcoming and respectful.
Together, this new trio codesigned Spirit Of Gaia, a 63 ft catamaran, and between 1994 and 1998, sailed her round the world. In James’s 80th year, they undertook the Lapita voyage, a 4,000mile trip following an ancient Pacific migration route on two double canoes, from the Philippines to the remote Polynesian islands of Anuta and Tikopia.
Five years later, Ruth passed away, but Hanneke and James continued to sail together until latterly, his battle with Alzheimer’s became too much for James to bear, and on December 14, 2021, he took his own life.
Perhaps because of his unconventional lifestyle, public recognition came late in life — in 2018 he finally won a lifetime achievement award from Classic Boat Magazine — but he wasn’t bothered.
Over 60 years, he and his team sold more than 10,000 sets of catamaran build plans to boating enthusiasts all over the world and he became a cult figure and hero in boating circles.
He also never lost his great enthusiasm for women — as lovers, friends, colleagues, crew — always insisting: ‘I couldn’t have achieved anything without ladies.’
‘On land he was the most useless, stupid man’
‘My girls were good at sailing and beautiful’