FARR 46

Designer’s Notes

This design was commissioned by two clients wanting a fast, easy cruising yacht for living aboard by one family, and extended ocean cruising. Our light displacement style naturally suited, giving a large amount of space in an easily handled form. Beam length ratio was kept quite low to guarantee low gear loadings and excellent handling characteristics along with very high reaching speeds. The fractional rig was an obvious choice to allow small headsails and reduce the incidence of sail changes for a small crew. The actual sail area displacement ratio is quite high. This allows not only sparkling light weather performance but also means that a self tacking headsail can become an all round sail - fast enough in light weather, but small enough to carry up into strong winds accompanied by reefing the main. No sail changes are necessary from calm to about 40 knots of wind. Shoal draft for Island cruising has been achieved with no effect on stability by using a deep ballasted centerboard swinging into a shallow ballasted keel, with unique geometry to allow maintenance of the lifting cable while the yacht is beached. The interior is laid out for comfortable family living and ocean passages, with separate sleeping areas for a couple and two or three children without using the main saloon area. Construction is in fiberglass foam sandwich to give immense strength for low weight and features specially strengthened and thickened bilge area in case the yacht should ever ground on rock or coral.