Farthing

A newer version has less draft than pictured

LOA 14'8" LWL 11’0" Beam 5'4" Draft 3'0" Displacement 2,160 lbs. Berths 1

Of all the sailing designs we've done, Farthing seems to capture people's imagination the most. A true singlehander, she cannot accommodate more than one. Actually two could sleep in the berth--as long as they don’t both need to sit up, eat, or sail at the same time! But she does offer her master quite a bit, for her diminutive size. She can be sailed while seated on the deck with one's feet in the hatch, or standing up in the hatch, leaning against the galley counter, or the vane gear can do the steering while you sit below. The berth is large and comfortable, and does not have to do double-duty as a seat. Two separate seats are shown but one or the other will need to be folded up for leg room. The galley area is large, and the storage space is meant to be sufficient for enough carefully-planned provisions to make feasible the longest of the normal ocean-crossing routes. She's small enough so that there are probably still plenty of records she could set. Remember, though, her maximum speed is around 4.4 knots, which puts the absolute minimum passage time from Newport, Rhode Island to Britain at around 24 days. In the trades she will average 106 miles per day. In the variables she will average around 80 miles per day. There is nothing about the design that is not ideal for offshore work, given her size. She even has full foam flotation.

Farthing is probably the least expensive way to achieve and maintain permanent global mobility. Just knowing she can do it is part of her appeal and a tougher looking boat of her size would be hard to imagine. She’d make a great minimum coastwise cruiser or live aboard, offering perhaps the fewest reasons for anxiety and the least significant maintenance of any boat for that purpose. She's deep in proportion to her size, but her draft is still small enough for you to jump over the side to wade ashore or push her off, and a small inflatable could be carried. She'd be the Cadillac of frostbite classes. There would be little anxiety in sending a lucky youngster off in one to learn a little self-reliance. At about the same cost, she'd be a nice alternative to a car, as a graduation present!

As if Farthing wasn't small enough, below you will find pictures of a model being built by our friend Eric Crossen in Alaska in preparation for building his full sized boat.  This allows him feel that he has already done everything once by the time he is ready to start building his boat.  Eric spent many years on offshore crab boats off the coast of Alaska.  There really isn't any more rugged life that that and he chose Farthing as the most seaworthy small vessel he could find.  We are very pleased that he is sharing his experiences with us in photographs.

The miniature shipyard with the section molds and centerline structure set up and ready to plank

Another view of the section molds before adding the centerline structure

Starting the planking with plastic over the edges of the molds to prevent the glued strip planking sticking to them.  Plywood was used for the transom only because this is a model.

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