A Tiki 21 Rescued a Second Time

In the backyard where the refit will be done, after trailering inland from the coast....


One of the first steps was to unload the hulls off the trailer and assemble the boat, to see what I had to work with and what work needed to be done.

This Tiki 21 was built by an amateur builder in Texas in about 1989 to 1990, near as I can tell from the receipts for the plans, various materials, sails and registration papers for the boat and trailer. The couple that I bought it from acquired it several years ago and completed the first refit around 2002. They said it had been badly neglected when they found it and that it took them a couple of years to get it back to sailing condition. Because of this, when they relaunched it, they christened the boat Ho'opakele, an Hawaiian name meaning "Rescued."

Apparently, this is a luckly little catamaran, as it has now been rescued once again. Although these owners did a lot of work on the boat and sailed it some, it was still a long way from my standards of seaworthieness and appearance, and after checking everything out and accessing the original build quality and the repairs needed after another year or two of neglect, I started making a list of damaged areas, maintenance issues, modifications needed, and gear and equipment. It was obvious that this was not going to be a quick and easy spruce-up job, but rather a fairly long and intense project. That was fine with me though. After Hurricane Katrina's fury on the coast, this was not the time to sail in this region anyway. And besides, refitting and repairing this boat would be a lot quicker and a lot cheaper than building a new Tiki from scratch.