20 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDERROVINGSRemembering Ian Farrier
New Zealand multihull designer and builder Ian Lindsay
Farrier, 70, died suddenly in San Francisco, California, on
December 8, 2017, culminating a career that began in 1973
in Australia.
While his early designs, many home built, were well
known in New Zealand and Australia, it was the F-27
(8.2m) that made an impact in the U.S. e trimaran has a
unique patented hinge mechanism enabling the amas
( oats) to be folded inward toward the main hull even when
a oat, making the boat easily trailerable. A er its introduc-
tion in 1986, production grew from 12 the next year to 101
in 1991. Farrier’s http://www.f-boat.com website includes an
engaging account of how Walmart heir John Walton took
interest in the design and founded Corsair Marine in Chula
Vista, California, to produce the boat. A modern produc-
tion facility was set up, with all crew, including Walton, get-
ting gritty on the shop oor. As sales increased, it was
enlarged to 27,000 sq (2,511m^2 ).
From the Corsair website: “Everyone pitched in no mat-
ter how dirty the job, and no one was exempt. Even John,
one of the wealthiest men in America, was in the thick of
some of the worst grinding jobs, was a great laminator, and
the main instigator of the extensive vacuum bagging sys-
tems that were developed at Corsair over the next few years.
It was a good combination all round. I had the design and
ideas for a radically new boat with my patented folding sys-
tem, John had the capital to see it through the very di cult
and unpro table development stage, and we had a great
crew. e F-27 could not have had a better start. Vacuum
bagging complete hulls, with outer laminate, core, and inner
laminate being bagged simultaneously, was one of the big
advances developed at Corsair. Total lamination time for
this hull was 1 hour and 30 minutes (45 minutes each side).
No one could do it quicker or better.” Farrier said the boat
comprised 57 individual molds.
Billed as a family cruiser that is also fast, the F-27 won
races and in 2004 became only the second multihull (a er
the Hobie 16) to be inducted into the American Sailboat
Hall of Fame.
Farrier resigned from Corsair Marine in 1991 to pursue
other designs, including the F-31 (9.4m), and later, the F-22
(6.7m), which at the time of his death he’d been working on
to increase production. During the years Farrier was busy
making tooling for the F-22 and setting up the shop for the
new model, he and I corresponded regularly. I hoped he’d
write a Design Brief for this magazine, and he continually
protested he needed to make more progress before he could
slow down long enough to write.
Old friend Peter Hackett sent this memory via Sackville
Curie, an early dealer of Farrier boats: “My rst association
with Ian was as a pimply teenager in Hawthorne, Brisbane,- A couple of Kiwis had moved into a house [across]
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