What are the differences between a Tahiti Rover and the Tahitiana?
The first answer to this question was contributed by none other than the designer of the Tahiti Rover himself, Merritt Walter, and there is certainly no better authority on the subject. The Website for the Tahitirover is www.tahitirover.com, and Mr. Walter has put together a very informative site with photos, drawings and the works. I recommend it to anyone interested in buying an existing or building a new Tahiti Rover. The construction plans for building your own Tahiti Rover are for sale at an incredibly inexpensive price, and can be purchased and received on-line.
For anyone who wants to know about the famous little wooden ketch designed by John Hanna of Dunedin, Florida, in the late 1920s, I recommend John Doherty’s book, A Ketch Called Tahiti: John G. Hanna and His Yacht Designs, (ISBN:0-87742-209-5). It was written with the cooperation of Hanna’s widow. The book has many photos of Tahiti Ketches under sail, at anchor, and dockside, including a couple of photos of Tom Steele’s Tahiti, Adios, which he sailed around the world twice and won the prestigious Blue Water Medal of the Cruising Club of America (CCA). The book also sets the record straight on questions of where Hanna got his inspiration for the design. (It is NOT derived from the well-known Colin Archer-designed Norwegian redningskoyte, or the double-ended Greek-style fishing boats seen in the Gulf of Mexico around the coast of Florida, and near Hanna’s hometown.
I am the owner of a Tahiti Rover, the welded steel version of Hanna’s wooden ketch designed by Merritt Walter, and I count my blessings for having found such a great boat. I became a steel boat advocate after weathering Hurricane Lilly in 1984, aboard a 40-foot steel ketch called Mingi Shillingi (Swahili for Costs a lot of Money). I sailed in company with the Swedish owner/builder of that boat, and experienced first hand the seakeeping integrity of steel construction. After surviving that storm, I swore that I would never go to sea in anything but a steel boat.
I lived at the Panama Canal for many years and met close to a dozen Tahiti ketch owners who were making long distance voyages. Some were being sailed solo, some with a guy and his girlfriend, and some with one or two children aboard. All of the owners and crew spoke of the easy motion, the simplicity and ease of sailing a Tahiti, and they had all met other Tahitis in far-flung parts of the world. The Tahiti ketch was never a production boat, but they were built all over the world, and it is conservatively estimated that at least a couple of thousand were built and launched!
My Tahiti Rover is gaff-rigged on the main and mizzen. With the jib, staysail, main, mizzen and gaff topsail, she sets 690 square feet, against the original Tahiti’s 470 square feet. With the additional sail area, coupled with the longer waterline and improved prismatic ratio of Merritt Walter’s refinements, she is a marvelous sailor, including windward ability. And there is not a winch on board for either halyards or sheets!
The original wooden Tahiti Ketch can still be found plying the oceans of the world, and if you are careful in surveying and buying one, it can be the most economical voyager ever. But if you are lucky enough to find one of the few steel Tahiti Rovers and an owner that will part with it, you have definitely scored a big one! I wish you luck.
Fair winds,
Robbie Johnson, author of Gourmet Underway – A Sailor’s Cookbook, and a Tahiti Rover owner
