Why the Farr 3.7?

With so many different boats out there it seems like a good idea to pick a nice local class that meets your criteria and join that. The trouble trouble starts when you find there's nothing locally that meets your criteria!

We got to the Farr 3.7 when looking for a boat that fitted these requirements:

• Can be built at home, and built as a first boat building project
• Goes fast and is fun to sail
• Encourages learning more advanced aspects of sailing
• Transportable on a car roof
• Can be sailed competitively by older gents
• Has a one design philosophy, with some flexibility

In our case, enter the Farr 3.7. A Bruce Farr design that can be built by a home builder and has an active class in New Zealand, plus a growing class in the UK and a smattering of other countries.

Here's a nice video of Dave Barker putting his through it's paces.

And here's a picture from the fledgling UK class. I like the fact that you can see three fairly different setups - check out the transom styles for instance, though in this case it looks like they might be sporting the same carbon rig and same sails.

This image shows a feature that gives the boat some extra bonus points..... not part of the main One Design which is still mainsail only but an offshoot that can be added without preventing normal One Design racing....

Let's breakdown how it fits our aims

Can be built at home

Apparently so! Still to be proven in our case but lots of hours pouring over plans and blogs from other builders indicate this to be true. The construction approach we're taking involves ply sheets glued over ply bulkheads with spruce or cedar stringers. We're going to take the shortcut of laser cutting the ply but otherwise tooling will be commonly available in a woodworking store nearby or secondhand.

Many Farr's are built at home and older boats that are homebuilt remain competitive against newer production boats that incorporate modern materials. In fact the class allows hulls to be built from a large variety of materials.

Goes fast and is fun to sail

With its single handed trapeze there is less need to hike than some other designs and plenty of righting power available. The boat is light (hull weight about 100lbs) and planes up and down wind in 12kts of breeze, and will plane while reaching in 8kts.

Encourages learning

The rig is very "tweakable". Rules specify basic mast and sail dimensions and then the builder makes up the rest. So from the start there is a lot of leeway to build a rig you can tweak. 

Boats also tend to allow some CB front back movement.

Then there is the aspect of helming from the trapeze - something that brings your selection down to a limited number of single handed designs.

If this is all too constraining there is a variation with a gennaker. The class itself does not race with genekers but boats setup to fly it can sail in standard single sail mode with those not modified. This modification can be done at a later date.

The boat is a good stepping stone to 49ers, Nacras and other boats that you helm from the trapeze.

Transportable on a car roof

At 100lbs hull weight this is slightly lighter than a laser. To get on the roof a simple strap system can be made so you only actually have to shift half the weight. If this is too much there are further devices you can make to help out.

Can be sailed competitively by older folks

Yes. Sailors remain competitive into their 60s and a bit over 85kg. The lower weight limit is about 50kg so this is a boat that can sustain both mixed gender and mixed age competition. The lack of hiking helps too.

Has a one design philosophy, with some flexibility

We've mentioned the rig flexibility. The hull is similar though a little more constrained. The Farr 3.7 class rules have fairly strict dimensional limits (with a little flexibility to make home building an option) and a lower weight limit. Materials are flexible with wood, GRP and Carbon all options. Some boats mix these options.

The centreboard has a basic box rule with max length and width defined by the class, but the user can do what they like within that. The rudder is open design.

So plenty to play with!