What’s In A Name?

Well I trust you are all having a great holiday, thanks so much for your greetings and messages, they are very much appreciated.

In a recent comment Jon asked about the origin of the name Gleda. Thanks for that Jon I’ve been meaning to put a short explanation in the header of the web site but never got round to it so thanks for prompt.

Even before I ordered my plans, when I was still very much at the dreaming phase of the project I started thinking about names. My initial thought was to name my new boat ‘Mor Gwas II ‘ after my much loved Hurley Silhouette. ‘Mor Gwas’ means ‘Sea Servant ‘ in the old Cornish language of Kernowek and I came close to sticking with it, but I kept looking because for some reason it never felt quite right. I suppose I was following a maritime tradition of adding ‘II’ to a name but ‘Morgwas‘ was unique and in my heart of hearts I knew that there could never be another. The ‘Morgwas’ story is history, time to move on.
So I continued searching. I wanted something short, something with meaning and something connected to my roots in England and of course it had to be feminine.
Then one day whilst scrolling through a list of Old English girls names I saw it … ‘Gleda‘, meaning ‘To make happy‘, ‘Glowing, Glad One, Gladden. The origin is believed to be part Anglo Saxon and Icelandic Norse bought by the Vikings The alternative Icelandic meaning is ‘One who is happy‘.
The name is pronounced GLAYDah

So there it is, Anglo Saxon with a touch of Viking, ‘Gleda‘ is a girl to make me happy.

Whilst on the subject of choices I made early in the project I had a message from Ernie Wisner recently  asking why I chose the Tiki design rather than another design.  I’m taking that to mean another Wharram Design because there was never any doubt about that. If I get into the merits of a Wharram catamaran over monohulls and floating glasshouse cats we’ll be here a long time!

I think it’s important to say from the start that the choice of which Wharram to build and sail is something deeply personal or at least it should be. You have to fall in love and in many cases it will be love at first sight. Perhaps this is not so important if you are simply looking to buy a completed boat but if you are to invest years of toil in the construction of your own then passion and a deep emotional involvement are essential allies.  This was certainly the case for me because when I first saw the Tiki 38 I was blown away with her beautiful lines, she just looked so right. After that the practical brain has to be employed of course. my demands were simple. the boat had to be big enough to live aboard permanently with a reasonable degree of comfort, and here’s the thing, not just for me but for Gail my partner and maybe one or two guests. Given that I spent two years living permanently on ‘Mor Gwas’ in one small cabin about 7ft long, 5ft wide and 4ft high it’s probably fair to say that my personal perspective on what constitutes ‘big enough’ is a little skewed. That said I’m a lot older and softer now so a Tiki 21 a la ‘Cooking Fat’ was was never going to cut it however capable they are as an ocean cruiser.

The second criteria was that I could sail her single handed if necessary. It’s not my intention to do so but for safety and independence I wanted to have the option available. The Tiki 38 is right at the upper limit for this but with some thought, an auto-pilot and the right set-up it’s possible.

The third very important criteria is build time and associated material costs. There’s a long discussion thread on the Wharram Builders and Friends forum about this at the moment. Even taking all the variables into account there is a consensus that the  JWD stated build times are optimistic to say the least. For example the build time for a Tiki 38 is shown as 2200 hours and I’m 82 hours over that already with a lot of work still to do. I’m not alone. I was briefly tempted with the Tiki 46 but boy am I glad I didn’t go with it.

My love affair with Wharrams started 30 odd years ago when I had some friends with a Tehini and a Narai. Beautiful, immensely strong and immensely capable, they still are. But things have moved on, building techniques and materials have improved, I didn’t feel capable of tackling the build of a boat that demanded real woodworking skills.

When I travelled to Marseilles in September to visit Jacques and ‘Pilgrim’ it was the first time I had seen a Tiki 38 in the flesh, the first time I’d been aboard one, the first time I’d sailed one. On the way there I had pangs of concern. What if I didn’t like her? What if she turned out to be different in reality from the dream I had in my head? I needn’t have worried. ‘Pilgrim’ turned out to be be beautiful  strong, capable, safe, comfortable, all the things I knew she would be. There was one other thing though, something I should have thought about, something I should have known, something as important as all those other things. It was love, it was passion, it was the bond between a boat and it’s creator. I could see it in Jacques eyes….. priceless.

I’ve never doubted for one second that I’d chosen the right boat and I can’t wait to join Jacques and my other Tiki 38 heroes basking in the sunshine of pride, satisfaction and accomplishment.