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Bruce Farr

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Bruce K. Farr OBE (1949) is a designer of racing and cruising yachts.

Boats designed by Farr Yacht Design have competed in every Whitbread Round the World Race since 1981[citation needed], and have won the 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2002 races. Farr's Volvo Round the World boats fared less well in 2006, however, as all four of his designs experienced problems after various failures in their Farr-designed keel canting mechanisms, including an abandonment of the yacht Movistar which was unable to stanch the flow of water through the keel box, and to this day lies derelict on the ocean floor, unrecovered. [1][2]

Farr is also a designer of America's Cup competitors, including New Zealand's entries in 1986 (co-designed with Ron Holland and Laurie Davidson) and 2000, and Larry Ellison's United States's BMW Oracle Racing Challenger in 2003 (accepted as Challenger of Record for the 2007 Cup). Farr's design Stars and Stripes ex.Young America proved wholly unsuccessful in the 1995 Finals, losing 0-5 to Black Magic, a Davidson design representing New Zealand and led by the late Sir Peter Blake.[3]

Among the most controversial of Farr's designs was that of NZ-1, commissioned for the Mercury Bay Sailing Club in New Zealand to contest the bizarre 1988 America's Cup. NZ-1 lost the challenge in straight races to a Bruce Nelson design from the San Diego Yacht Club, and serves as an excellent case study on how the process of yacht racing can be mired in the legal system when America's Cup designers radically depart from the spirit of the rules.[4]

Farr is the most successful designer of winners of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, having designed 15 overall winners between 1945 and 2003.[5]

Farr's cruising yachts have been sold and sailed the world around. His production designs (mass-produced as opposed to custom) have been produced by a variety of yacht manufacturers including Cookson Boats, Carroll Marine, Beneteau, Concordia, Baltic and Nauta.

Some of the larger cruising luxury yachts Farr has designed include MIRABELLA, PHILANDERER, SOJANA and the two Southern Wind built 100 footers, FAREWELL and FARANDWIDE.

Cookson Boatworks developed a new 50' design, using the Farr office to collaborate, called the Cookson 50. [6] Irish-owned yacht Chieftan, conceived, developed and constructed in 2005 at Cookson's in New Zealand, was the overall winner of the 2007 Rolex Fastnet Race. Shortly after it was launched, Chieftan finished 5th at Australia's Hamilton Island Race Week, then won class in the 2005 Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Farr is a native of New Zealand and currently lives near Annapolis, Maryland. His services to yachting were recognized in 1990 when he was awarded the Order of the British Empire.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Canting Keel design failures (html), official Volvo Round the World Race website, retrieved 2008-03-12
  2. ^ Needle in a Haystack (html), official Volvo Round the World Race website, retrieved 2008-03-12
  3. ^ America's Cup, IACC Era (html), Wikipedia, retrieved 2008-07-23
  4. ^ Mercury Bay Boating Club v San Diego Yacht Club, Opinion of the Court (htm), State of New York Court System, retrieved 2007-11-21
  5. ^ Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race Statistics – 1945 - 2003 (pdf), Official Site, rolex Sydney-hobart Yacht race, retrieved 2007-11-21
  6. ^ Cookson 50 Overview (html), Cookson Boats, retrieved 2008-03-12
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