Farr 30: End of an era

The Farr 30, designed by Farr Yacht Design, was first built by Carrol Marine and launched in 1995. Originally named the Mumm 30 after title sponsor Champagne Mumm, the class rebranded to Farr 30 in 2007 when the sponsorship ended.

Considered a lovely boat to sail, this state-of-the-art offshore one design quickly became an international attraction. After becoming officially recognized by World Sailing, Chris Law won the class’s first World Championship held in 1997 at Marseille, France.

However, time has moved on, and the escalating costs to compete with a 30 footer on an international scale has impacted the class. After cancelling the 2009 Worlds, with reduced regional attendance from 2010 to 2016, the worlds was scratched again in 2017.

Rather than maintain it’s something it’s not, the Class is looking to go back in time and rescind its international status. Class President Darren Burns reports:

Our 2016 international regatta in Sweden came as close as we have come to qualifying in the last five years, and given that we have mostly transformed into a regional fleet class, the executive has taken the decision to no long support the class as a World Sailing one design yacht.

This has been a difficult decision, however, we feel that supporting this classification is no longer financially viable, and for reasons noted, is likely to not produce another world championship in the foreseeable future.

Out of the 200 plus boats built, we have a small cluster of fleets on the north west and north east coasts of North America, Northern Europe, and the Middle East. These fleets continue to hold one design fleet racing though out the season and have seem some fleet building over the last two years.

The longevity of this class is a testament to how great the Farr 30 is as mixed fleet boats. Many new sport boats have come and gone over the years and most have not been able to match the boat for boat agility of the Farr 30.

In the next few weeks we will be posting the dates and locations of the 2018 OD events on the class website along with results updates and any other news the fleet would like to share. Please use this as a resource for your own local fleet racing and send any other posting along to be shared with the class.