Farrier F-22
Ian Farrier’s final design is a testament to his lifetime of experience
You could be forgiven for not realizing the F-22 trimaran is, in fact, a first-rate pocket cruiser. The boat’s narrow, plumb-bow entry, powerful amas, sleekly sculpted cabintrunk, expansive cockpit and powerful high-aspect rig all seem to speak to pure performance. A single glance belowdecks, though, is all it takes to set you straight. And the closer you look the more impressed you’ll become.
Not only does the surprisingly expansive accommodations space include room for three legitimate berths—four if you count two in the forepeak as Farrier Marine (now a subsidiary of U.S.based Daedalus Yachts) does—there are also any number of great little accessories to ensure you aren’t just camping out, but truly cruising.
A pop-top over the companionway, for example, provides equally legitimate standing headroom, while to port just inside the companionway is room for a compact cooktop, with a small sink and space for a portable head to starboard. Deep, molded-in bins also line the sides of the “saloon” outboard of the two settees, complementing the storage space aft under the cockpit benches. There’s even a clever removable privacy screen for when you sit on the “throne.” Nice!
Beyond that, as the swan song of the late multihull pioneer Ian Farrier, the F-22 benefits from Farrier’s lifetime
of experience integrating lightweight design and top-notch build quality, all in an outstanding trailerable package. The amas, for example, not only fold in and out effortlessly, the entire mechanism is located outboard of the interior, so as not to impinge on the accommodation space. Cross beams are also explicitly designed to both reduce windage and minimize spray. Same thing with the main hull, which is dramatically flared to help keep crews dry in a seaway and maximize living space while minimizing wetted surface area.
Construction is in vinylester with the foam-core hull, deck, amas and other major components all resin-infused to maximize their strength-forweight ratio. Carbon and Kevlar are also included in high-load and possible high-impact areas; the centerboard is slightly offset to starboard, making for a clear cabin sole; and the outboard is mounted on a bracket offset to port. Again, the cockpit is enormous for a boat this size, and the sloping forward face of the cabintrunk functions as a legitimate “foredeck,” compete with a substantial glued-on antiskid and bow pulpit for security when dealing with any reaching sails flying from the boat’s sprit.
The mast can be quickly raised using a gin pole, and deck hardware includes Harken primaries and main traveler, Lewmar clutches, Ronstan genoa tracks and blocks, a KZ furler for the jib and a Colligo furler for the screecher. A racing version of the boat is available with a daggerboard and tall rig, which includes a conventional rigid boom and carbon Southern Spars mast. However, aboard our test boat we carried a boom-furling, full-batten main, in which the “boom” is actually a horizontally configured torque line. The boat’s blade rudder is housed in a sturdy, transom-mounted cassette.
Under sail, in near perfect conditions, we easily hit 7.5 knots and occasionally just over 8 sailing hard on the wind in just 10 knots of breeze. Bearing away and unrolling the screecher our speed shot up to 10 then 11.5 knots, eventually touching 14 as we left a wake that would have made a Volvo Ocean Race veteran proud. Yeah, she’s fast. Better still, the helm remained responsive and nicely balanced throughout, while the boat’s amas offer sufficient buoyancy to ensure you don’t have to worry about burying the bows.
Suffice it to say, there’s a very good reason the boat was chosen as one of SAIL’s “Best Boats” for 2019. It would be hard to think of a better legacy for one of the world’s great multihull pioneers than this fine little boat.