Though Officially Retired from Designing Boats, Bruce Farr's
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Though officially retired from designing boats, Bruce Farr’s legacy lives on in his winning designs and cutting edge firm. FARR Out! by Wendy Mitman Clarke FEW DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS, WHEN MOST Chesapeake sailors were dreaming of a spring still months away, a great story was unfolding on the other side Aof the world that undoubtedly brought a smile to Bruce Farr. In the 70th running of the Rolex Sydney Hobart race—one of the toughest, most prestigious and potentially dangerous offshore yacht races in the world—the overall winner on corrected time was not the newest, most expensive, or flashiest racing rocket. It was a 29-year-old Farr 43 named Wild Rose, owned by Roger Hickman of New South Wales, who took home the coveted Tattersall’s Cup. This same boat won the race 21 years ago, then named Wild Oats. ¶ For Hickman, it was the culmination of a lifetime of yacht racing, that pursuit which has at its core the pure joy of sailing well in a fast boat. For the man who designed the boat, a New Zealander who chose Annapolis, Maryland, as home base for what is now arguably the world’s Rolex/Daniel Forster 76 CHESAPEAKE BAY MAGAZINE October 2015 ChesapeakeBoating.net FARR Out! by Wendy Mitman Clarke best known and most successful yacht With over 40 world cutting-edge designs that would baffle, design firm, it was further confirmation championships in Farr thrill, infuriate and exhilarate, of a basic fact that trumps the vagaries depending upon which end of that of international yacht racing politics designs, as well as particular yacht racing story you and rules: Bruce Farr’s boats are successes in the America’s happened to be. wicked fast. They always have been. “Ask Bruce Farr how he got into Now retired from Farr Yacht Cup, Vendee Globe and yacht design, and he’ll tell you he never Design, Bruce Farr seems content to Volvo Ocean Race, got out of it,” writes John Bevan-Smith watch the game from a distance, his name is synonymous in The Shape of Speed, a definitive though he remains one of the most biography of Farr, his business partner influential sailboat designers in the with world class grand Russell Bowler, and the design firm sport’s history. With over 40 world prix yacht racing. they built. “Raise an eyebrow and he’ll championships in Farr designs, as well tell you he was sailing before he was as successes in the America’s Cup, sailor (the latter being pretty much part born. That he was still in nappies when Vendee Globe and Volvo Ocean Race of every Kiwi’s CV), Bruce Farr even he and Alan [his late older brother] (for which Farr Yacht Design is now is soft-spoken, a lean, precise and were bundled into Santorin’s forward presently the exclusive designer with elegant man who, if looks were all cabin to ride out storms. He’ll tell you the Volvo Ocean 65), his name is there were to go by, could just as easily that from the day he could walk he was synonymous with world class grand be a professor at university instead of standing beside his father watching prix yacht racing. an internationally known naval him build and rebuild an assortment of It is a rarified world indeed, and a architect. But there’s that old saying, boats from dinghies to keel-boats. That hard world in which to survive, let “Beware the quiet ones.” From his he was using hammers and chisels alone consistently succeed, and the earliest years, Farr was passionate before he was using crayons and man behind the name doesn’t seem about racing sailboats. Combined with pencils.” A gifted student, at 16 years the type. The shy son of a New Zealand his mathematician’s mind and artist’s old Farr left university to begin printer-turned-fisherman and lifelong eye, he would turn that passion into designing boats fulltime, fully 78 CHESAPEAKE BAY MAGAZINE October 2015 ChesapeakeBoating.net Bruce Farr sailing on the Farr 43, Snake Oil in the 1980s. PRECEDING PAGES: 2014 Farr 40 World Champion Plenty racing in San Francisco Bay. exotics as well as one of its most gifted helmsmen and designers of racing dinghies,” writes Bevan-Smith. “He brought, along with his lateral-thinking mind, a calmness of presence and a quiet but steely resolve. He also brought a sharp business sense.” Shortly after Bowler joined the team, New Zealand imposed a 20 percent sales tax on boats, a move that kneecapped the country’s boatbuilding industry. It was partly this economic Farr Design Yacht reality, as well as the team’s desire to supported by his parents, though naval had studied civil engineering and also lead the world in racing design butting architecture was “virtually unknown in liked pushing the envelope in every up against the logistical challenges of New Zealand,” Bevan-Smith writes. way—in sailing form, in design, and traveling between Europe and New By 1979—13 years after Farr had most importantly for his partnership Zealand to work with clients, that left school and started his own with Farr, in spearheading the use of prompted them to move to the Eastport company—Bowler joined him at Bruce lightweight but super-strong materials neighborhood in Annapolis in 1981 and Farr Yacht Design. One of New in boat construction. “He was the open Bruce Farr & Associates. Zealand’s best young skippers, Bowler country’s leading pioneer in small-boat “I first came here to a boat show Continued on page 106 ChesapeakeBoating.net CHESAPEAKE BAY MAGAZINE October 2015 79 FARR Out! continued from page 79 in 1979 to meet Ian Bruce [who with Entering the office is walls are adorned throughout with Bruce Kirby designed the Laser sailing like going to yacht racing half-models of some of the most dinghy],” Farr says. “We were talking famous boats in the sport’s history: about doing a project together, which Mecca; the walls are Steinlager 2, Sayonara, Swedish Match, eventually became the Laser 28. I was adorned throughout with NZ Endeavour, Ragamuffin, coming back from Europe, and he said, Longobarda, Geronimo, UBS ‘Stop by and see us in Annapolis,’ so I half-models of some of Switzerland, Ceramco, Kiwi Magic—to did. I didn’t know anything about the most famous boats in name only a very few. Annapolis, I had heard of it, but I the sport’s history. “Fifteen-thousand boats have been thought, well that must be a big city, I’ll built from designs created here,” says just roll in and find a hotel. And I center, though it didn’t have much Annapolis native Patrick Shaughnessy, quickly found out there weren’t any boatbuilding, but lots of service,” Farr 44, now Farr Yacht Design’s president. hotels.” He took a room in Washington, says. “It seemed a better climate, a Although 21 years younger than his D.C., and drove to Annapolis the next really nice place to live from the look of mentor, Shaughnessy bears uncanny day while it rained nonstop. “It was it, it had a nice sailing area and resemblance with his quiet ways and one of those boat shows where they industry, and when we asked around, subtle humor that belie a talented, driven sold all the foul-weather gear on the everybody—even people overseas— character. Like Farr, Shaughnessy never first day. But the next day was knew Annapolis.” finished his studies of architecture and gorgeous, and that made up for it.” The move positioned the company design at University of Maryland and The Farr team considered locating perfectly for its ambitious future. Anne Arundel Community College. in Florida and Rhode Island, both Today, the Farr Yacht Design office Rather, he joined Bruce Farr & Associates states being known for their strong continues to occupy the corner of Third as a part-time draftsman in 1990 after boatbuilding industries, but in the end Street and Eastern Avenue, overlooking answering an ad. Since then he has they chose Annapolis for its climate, its Back Creek on the eastern side of the worked steadily to gain the insight and proximity to international airports, and Eastport peninsula. Entering the office experience needed to oversee the team the Chesapeake itself. “It was a sailing is like going to yacht racing Mecca; the that designs and sells multimillion-dollar 106 CHESAPEAKE BAY MAGAZINE October 2015 ChesapeakeBoating.net FARR Out! projects, and to handle the delicate sure what I’d be doing with my life.” As for boats, Farr is content to sail business of working with the enormous The speed thing, though, doesn’t on OPBs—other people’s boats— egos that come with the territory. seem to have retired with him. When among them a Farr 30 that he helps “He stood up and was counted he turned 50, his wife Gail gave him race around the cans out of Annapolis. when it mattered,” Farr says of tickets to an auto racing school. This is where you may find him on any Shaughnessy. “He did a good job and Driving on the track rekindled his given Wednesday evening in the worked his way into the position.” interest in something he’d done as a summer, perhaps—the tall, quiet one Farr seems well satisfied with youngster in New Zealand, but which who was awarded the Order of the the hand-off of the firm that for years he gave up when he came to British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, defined much of his life.