Bodacious (sailboat by Farr Yacht Design)

Farr Yacht Design, founded by

Bruce Farr Bruce Kenneth Farr (born 1949 in Auckland) is a New Zealand designer of racing and cruising yachts. Farrdesigned boats have won, challenged for, or placed highly in the Whitbread Round the World Race, America's Cup, and Sydney to Hobart Yacht R ...

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, is a

racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...

yacht design firm based in Annapolis, Maryland, United States. The firm is led by Patrick Shaughnessy. Its yachts measure from to . Farr develops custom and production yachts, including interiors,

sails A sail is a tensile structure—which is made from fabric or other membrane materials—that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may ...

, and hull design. Farr uses outside research and development with tank testing and

wind tunnels Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...

. Farr-designed yachts have won and placed well in a broad range of races.

History

Bruce Farr first achieved acclaim as a sailboat designer in the highly competitive 18 ft

Skiff A skiff is any of a variety of essentially unrelated styles of small boats. Traditionally, these are coastal craft or river craft used for leisure, as a utility craft, and for fishing, and have a one-person or small crew. Sailing skiffs have deve ...

class, popular in Australia and New Zealand. Farr designs won the 18 ft Skiff Giltinan World title several times in the early 1970s. Starting in 1973, Bruce was able to focus full-time on designing sailboats. Another New Zealander active as both a designer and sailor in the 18 ft fleet, Russel Bowler, a civil engineer by training, introduced the fibreglass-foam sandwich construction technique to the 18 ft class in 1977 with a boat 1/3 lighter and possessing a lower wetted area than the competition. Starting in 1976, Bowler provided

structural engineering Structural engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering in which structural engineers are trained to design the 'bones and muscles' that create the form and shape of man-made structures. Structural engineers also must understand and cal ...

services to Farr as a consultant, and joined him full-time in 1980. Within a year, they moved the office to Annapolis in order to get better access to the northern hemisphere yacht market.

Farr designed boats

The yachts designed by Farr are primarily light-

displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and Physics * Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...

, fractional rig, wide sterned, shallow hulled yachts. Many of Bruce Farr's early designs were comparatively skiff-like in appearance, with shallow hulls, wide sterns and light displacement. The result is a quicker, faster hull than more traditional racing yacht designs. Over the years more and more designers have incorporated these ideas. The latest

Volvo Open 70 The Volvo Open 70 (sometimes referred to as a Volvo Ocean 70) is the former class of racing yachts designed for the Volvo Ocean Race. It was first used in the 2005–06 race (replacing the Volvo Ocean 60 yachts which were first used in 1993). A ...

class yachts are examples of this trend. In addition to one design yachts (table), Farr Yacht Design has designed a various yachts for

Volvo Ocean Race The Ocean Race is a yacht race around the world, held every three or four years since 1973. Originally named the Whitbread Round the World Race after its initiating sponsor, British brewing company Whitbread, in 2001 it became the Volvo Ocean Ra ...

(and earlier Whitbread) teams under the

, Volvo Ocean 60 and Whitbread 60 rule. The company has also designed the

Volvo Ocean 65 The Volvo Ocean 65 is a class of monohull racing yachts. It is the successor to the Volvo Open 70 yacht used in past editions of the Volvo Ocean Race. It was announced at a conference in Lorient, France, during a stopover in the 2011–12 Volvo ...

used in the 2014-15 edition of the race and 2017-18 edition. Major yacht builders such as Bavaria Yachtbau and

Beneteau Beneteau or Bénéteau () is a French sail and motor boat manufacturer, with production facilities in France and in the United States. The company is a large and recognized boat builder, commanding a substantial worldwide market, with its holdi ...

have commissioned Farr-designed yachts for their cruising lines of production sailboats. This includes Bavaria's Vision and Cruiser lines and Beneteau's First line. Designs have been also made by Farr Yacht Design under the GP42 and TP 52 (yacht) rule and for racing based on

IRC (sailing) IRC is a system of handicapping sailboats and yachts for the purpose of racing. It is managed by the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) in the United Kingdom through their dedicated Rating Office, and the Union Nationale pour la Course au Large (UNCL ...

, International Measurement System rating. Other notable design include (super) Maxi's and America's Cup yachts (for Team

BMW Oracle Racing Oracle Team USA is an American yacht racing syndicate initially formed to compete for the 2003 America's Cup. They competed again in the 2007 event before winning the 33rd America's Cup regatta in 2010 – representing the Golden Gate Yacht Club ...

(2007, 2003), Young America (2000) Tag Heuer (1995),

(1992, 1988, 1987)) and the 30m maxi yacht Leopard3. * Note:

PHRF Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) is a handicapping system used for yacht racing in North America. It allows dissimilar classes of sailboats to be raced against each other. The aim is to cancel out the inherent advantages and disadvantages ...

rating shown is the Northern California Base Rate full keel with standard mast unless otherwise described.

Sources

{{Reflist
Flying 18s Giltinan History Flying 18s News
* Farr 727

External links

Farr Yacht Design Website
Yacht design firms America's Cup yacht designers Compasso d'Oro Award recipients