The New Farr 36

Every now and then, like the blind drunken squirrel that stumbles upon an acorn, one of our readers says something good. Solo has been a regular participant here at SA, and he was bitching about the New Farr 36 that is to be built by Carroll Marine. We liked his rant so much, we created a new feature, the Ranting Reader Review. If you'd like to give your POV on something, send it to us. Here is Solo's

I am at loss here, why does everyone get so excited and who really gives a flying fuck about another 30+ footer, 36 in this case, with single fixed keel, single rudder, single mast, spreaders, shrouds and a jib, no water ballast, and a nice open transom to get swept through by large waves? I mean, who cares, what's the fucking difference? Mumm 36 wasn't there? So they made this one lighter by 1.5K lbs. by putting a lot of carbon in it. I am sure that was at a price to pay. They say it's a "reasonable cost." Is it really, honestly in your or anyone's heart, that much that much better than Mumm 36? Is it cheaper? Is there another mini-Khan crying out there holding tightly onto his last $250K, in awe of this superior sailing machine, just dunno what a boy to do.

"Excellent transportability" - are you fucking kidding me - do you put it on a trailer, throw that keel in the trunk and go to another regatta? I don't think so. They say it's a lifting keel. Ok, go lift that sucker and then you tow all 8K of it and all of its shit with what? Even a big ass Suburban can hardly handle it. Haul a 36 footer on a trailer at 12 feet wide with mast on top on I-95 through Hartford. Yeah, sign me up for that one. Check it out, in this one they gonna have a backstay instead of runners. Wow! I guess it does make it sooo different and so user-friendly. It is just soo, like, in-no-va-tive. Ok, Bruce, this one, this one we'll make without runners. and this one, here we are going all out, this one will have runners. ok? Oh, yeah, let's design more bore on the water.
Jeanneau 37 is 9000 lbs. with a salon, kitchen, nav station, bunks under the cockpit and two companionways for communication with the helmsman. Built like ten years ago. This new Farr still does not have a self-tacking jib, still has carbon pole protruding from the hull with a nice corresponding hole, still has a triangular mainsail (can you spell squarehead?), still needs a vang to hold the boom down on the runs, still requires a load of meat to hang on the rail to hold down those 877 sq feet of sail. Meat is as "effective in the bunks as on the rail" - yeah, right, is it why every Farr-designed Whitbread boat (what's volvo anyway?) has shit stacked out on the rail and people sitting on top of it, in an ocean-going vessel - that's safe, I am sure.

But really, it's just another stupid boat, that's gonna go slow in light, faster in medium air and pounce through waves in a blow hurting the crew and taking a lot of water on deck in the process. And when enough dudes spend a pile of money they will have the privilege to "easily transport" their lug to a regatta to race with another 20 or so boats in one design trim. And while they will have a restricted professionals rule they will still blow a gazillion of money to make sure that those few professionals are the best of the best.

I don't get this shit, not at all. but then again, I also thought that Farr 40 was ugly and stupid when I first saw it. Oh wait, I still think it's ugly but does not look that stupid with 40 boats on the line one-design. I guess I underestimated the number of people ready and willing to spend so much money to race around the buoys.

Courtesy of Solo

November 15, 2001 8:51 PM