Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The new flush deck Farr 55


"Living Doll" Farr 55 - Photo by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World

The newly launched Farr 55, Living Doll, for Melbourne yachtsman Michael Hiatt is completing her fit-out in the Viaduct Harbour, Auckland.

Farr Yacht Design’s latest offering, design #642, is a 55 foot IRC racing design with boats currently under construction in New Zealand and Turkey. With a large presence of TP52’s optimized for competing in many IRC fleets, our goal was to design a boat that could race in the same class; faster with a relatively better handicap. The 55 foot length produces the desired performance leap and moderate increases in displacement, draft and sail area limit the increase in handicap. The hull was developed using the knowledge gained from our recent extensive CFD research on Volvo 70s and GP42s.

A unique feature with a large impact on the hull design is the twin rudder steering arrangement. The twin rudders generate much less stern up force allowing the bow to be finer forward for less drag in waves and chop. Because the stern lifts less at high speeds the effective sailing length can be maximized over more of the speed range without incurring handling problems in extreme conditions. Ease of handling in reaching and running conditions was a prime driver in our design process as we worked to ensure that this boat can be just as dynamic as the smaller and marginally lighter TP52’s that it will compete against. Read more @ Farr Yachts