As mentioned previously, my sister is doing some pretty remarkable anthropological documentation on the early Southern California surf culture, which I can’t help but see as related to the same yearning that led our project designer James Wharram to look towards Oceania for inspiration for a way to live that offered the possiblity of transcending…
Probably like me, you read all or some of Kon Tiki in school. But it was only a few years ago I learn that Kon Tiki was also a documentary movie; that the expedition took along photography gear and that there were moving images from their four month, 4,000+ mile voyage. I’m not sure, but…
As related in my last post, it looks like we have a place to build our boat. I saw the place last Sunday, and emailed the specifics to my insurance broker on Monday, she sent the info along to the underwriter, and by Tuesday we had a quote and about 12 pages of endorsements. Mostly…
A Tiki 38 with mainsail reefed makes good time on a sparkling sea. Since my last, good news on several fronts! It looks like we have a place to build our boat. It’s a barn cum wood-working shop in Bridgehampton, insulated with propane furnaces. Our landlord is a boat-builder himself and enthusiastic about the project.…
Our project engineer has completed the initial feasibility study of the Mon Tiki design and it’s mostly very good news! The scantlings (that’s boat talk for the size of the lumber used) look good, the distance between the bulkheads looks good, everything about the structure of the boat looks good. The carrying capacity looks excellent. We had…
My sister is doing graduate work on a group of surfer-musicians who maintain a more than seventy-year-old music tradition on the beach at San Onofre, California. She’s an amazingly talented writer, with incredible insight into what she calls “oceanophelia”; something that all of us in Montauk understand, even if we’ve never put a name to…
I build my first boat, a Bolger Teal, the Summer my wife was pregnant with Maggie. It’s a simple boat to build; all straight cuts and easy to assemble. Three sheets of plywood, a few 2x4s and a couple of weekends on the patio. When I’d take it sailing, people would ask “Did you build…
Hello, and welcome to the website for the Mon Tiki Project. Let me tell you a little about myself. My name is David Ryan and I’m the captain and owner of Sailing Montauk, a charter sailing company in Montauk, NY. Mon Tiki is the next step in the evolution of our company; a keel up build…