MON TIKI is Officially a Part of the US Merchant Marine Fleet!

David Ryan

David Ryan is a boat builder and USCG licensed master captain. He is the owner of Sailing Montauk and skipper of Montauk''s charter sailing catamaran MON TIKI You can follow him on Twitter @CaptDavidRyan

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31 Responses

  1. Congrats! The Atlantic feels safer already.Report

  2. Kolohe says:

    I’d want to see its long form certificate.Report

  3. James B Franks says:

    If there isn’t a raised seal, it’s fake.Report

  4. James Hanley says:

    Congrats! It’s a great moment.

    Working on the deck means we’re doing a lot work in bare feet, which is how life should be, right?

    I thought so until yesterday, when I was working on the porch roof in bare feet and managed to burn the bottom of my foot when the sun heated up the roofing material sufficiently and sprain my little toe by catching it on the latter as I was stepping off onto the roof. So be careful; it’s a mighty dangerous world for feet out there.Report

    • Sorry to hear that James.

      Sloth certainly has a few things going for it.Report

    • David Ryan in reply to James Hanley says:

      Being a raceboat, with inboard chainplates, genoa car tracks, and whatever else, our late sloop Intemperance had all sorts of toe hazards, and I finally gave in and started wearing deck shoes when working on her (that extra half-step of pace that you put on when sailing for money was just enough that I started bashing my toes every other trip. “Only a flesh-wound,” I’d say through gritted teeth as my guests looked on in horror at the blood tricking across the deck, “nothing to worry about. Let me fetch a bandage and we’ll be underway straight away.”

      One of the main reasons we selected Wharram’s Tiki design is that the deck is huge (300 square feet) and blessedly free of stainless steel this and that. She won’t be as weatherly, but beating is a good way to take beating. (Intemperance went to weather like a witch, so we sailed to wind often, with all the attendent fuss. I used to joke “I don’t want a weatherly boat for my next boat, so I won’t be tempted.”

      I got my wish. All reaching and running now. In bare feet.Report

  5. mac says:

    Cool! Can you show some interior pictures too? I’ve been curious about that from when I first saw the blueprints.Report

    • David Ryan in reply to mac says:

      The interior is nothing to see right now. In the name of getting on the water and getting the meter on the money turning the other way we’ve only fitted out the interior with what needs to go in before the hulls get closed in. With the exception of the head, the interior spaces of the boat (two single cabins, a double cabin, galley and dinette) are strictly for personal use and are off-limits to guests.

      This will make some of to-be-done cabinetry a pain, but it is what it is. A project or two for this Winter. Report

  6. I think Garrison Keillor said this morning on “Writer’s Notebook” that it was the anniversary of Kon Tiki completing its voyage, so, there’s that.Report

    • David Ryan in reply to Kieselguhr Kid says:

      65 years to the day after Kon-Tiki made landfall and was wrecked.Report

      • Kolohe in reply to David Ryan says:

        Hm, yeah. Well, don’t do that.Report

        • David Ryan in reply to Kolohe says:

          Kon-Tiki could only run downwind, with only a little steerage port and starboard, so fetching up on the windward side of an island was alway (more or less) a part of the plan.

          With her (relative to Kon-Tiki) modern for and aft sailplan, Mon Tiki can reach and point, giving us the option of coming around the back of an island and anchoring in the lee. We are informed by tradition, but not captive to it.Report

          • BlaiseP in reply to David Ryan says:

            I had a friend from American Samoa: there were lots of them in the military. The subject of Kon Tiki came up. He said Kon Tiki was a farce. If Heyerdahl had wanted to replicate the Polynesian voyages of exploration, he would have used a proa, with those enormous lateen sails.Report

            • David Ryan in reply to BlaiseP says:

              Your friend misunderstood the objectives of the Kon-Tiki trip. Heyerdahl was not trying to replicate Polynesian voyages.

              Heyerdahl postulated that Oceania could have been settled from South America, and the purpose of the Kon-Tiki voyage was to show that the trip could be made using pre-Columbian technology, and on that basis Heyerdahl’s theory could not be dismissed on the basis that such a trip was technologically impossible.

              As to proas and lateen sails.

              Lateen sails are Mediteranian and East African/Arabic. Oceanic sailing vessels use crab-claw sails.

              Proas are used throughout Oceania, but were not the vessel of choice for major passages, which were usually done by large double canoes, aka catamarans.

              You might find this website interesting:

              http://pacificvoyagers.org/

              The Pacific Voyager vakas (double canoes) use their traditional crab-claw rigs for parading, and a leg’o’mutton rig when sailing offshore.Report