Green Wyvern Yachting Club
To many people building a 36 foot yacht is just a dream. Dick had that dream, but turned it into reality: the racing cruiser Farthing.
I had wistfully thought about building a fibreglass river cruiser for some years before I actually got around to doing it. I suspect that it would have remained in my imagination but for one event.
Enhanced by a glass or two, I chanced to air my imagined plans to a few Wyverns sitting in a pub in Norwich during the winter of 1975. Some considerable discussion was concluded by Cecil Howard putting his arm around my shoulder and saying, 'My dear Dick', as was his way, 'I would trust you to do anything but I wouldn’t trust you to do that.' Those words though kindly spoken are indelibly etched upon my memory.
The next day I bought myself a book about how to build fibreglass boats. My old friends, David Snutch and Peter Newton, owned the yacht Sparklet, a survivor of a bygone era before the First World War. She was very out of shape and sported a not very flattering transom, having had her counter-stern cut off, but when I looked at her I could always see the beautiful racing yacht that she had once been. She was still a delight to sail, though she needed a gale of wind to get her going.
I obtained permission to take the lines off Sparklet and David Snutch and I went to Somerleyton prior to her being put back into the water for the forthcoming season, to take some measurements. It was my intention to take off 10 equally spaced profiles from one side of the hull onto large rectangular pieces of cardboard. The positions of these cardboard stations were linked to datum points I had constructed beside the boat using string tied to wooden poles and stakes. The whole process would have astonished Heath Robinson, but it worked.
The boat that I intended to construct would be some 5 feet longer than Sparklet and would be 36 feet from stem to stem. I thought, at the time, that to recreate the counter stern would not make any difference to her efficiency in the water and it would be too long for practical cruising.
During this time I worked for a company that built racing cars, and I had become friendly with John Taylor, an Australian, who was a designer in the styling department of the sponsors, Vauxhall Motors. I had two major blessings here, John was interested in boats and parts of the cars were built in fibreglass. The hotchpotch of cardboard templates and my countless and seemingly incomprehensible measurements disappeared to Vauxhall Motors with John and reappeared some weeks later in the shape of a working drawing of the hull. I was in business.I built an extra 20 feet onto the garage at home and set about constructing the mould.
The Farrar family finances at this time were a gingerly controlled juggling act to balance the cost of a young child, a supportive though expensive wife and a thirsty peer group, so there was a very tight budget. I constructed the wood parts of the mould from wooden pallets and the lathes from old floorboards. I had read how professional boat builders transfer measurements from scale drawings to actual size, but it did not seem to be appropriate to the way in which I was considering making the mould. JT solved the problem by arriving with two rolls of four feet wide graph paper. The dimensions were taken from the drawing via scale dividers straight onto the large graph paper at full size. This was then stapled onto the cross sections of the mould and cut out with a jigsaw . . . easy!
The sections, when set up, were linked by lathes to produce the hull shape and the whole thing covered with half-inch wire mesh (weldmesh). Since it was my intention only to build a single hull, the fibreglass was to be laid onto the weldmesh and the final surface produced by filling and sanding. I spent months filling and sanding. When I thought I had finished JT would come over to Willingham and look at the hull in the dark with a torch, a procedure that highlights any imperfections. He would ring these with red chalk and I would embark on another three weeks work to put it right. It seemed an endless process. Although I was very pleased with the shape and fairness of the hull, I did have a niggling worry about the amount of filler I had used and although I tried to dismiss it, the concern would not go away. I decided to use what I had created as a pattern (a plug) to create a female mould, which would be used for laying up a hull using the more common fibreglass techniques for boat building.
The project now took on a new dimension. The creation of a female mould meant that, in theory, any number of hulls could be faithfully reproduced. Dave Snutch had helped me in the early stages and he was a regular visitor to Willingham. Dave became interested in having a moulding for himself and completing it in partnership with Bill and Lesley Noblett.
A local farmer lent me a shed close to home and the female mould was installed. The hull, which became Farthing was constructed and plywood bulkheads fitted before being released from the mould. The mould was then transported to Ripplecraft at Somerleyton where Cuckoo was laid up and fitted out. She was launched in September 1982 and competed in the YNR two weeks later. Farthing remained in the shed at Willingham until I had fitted the decks and then she was transported to Sanderson’s boatyard at Reedham. Stephen Sanderson completed the woodwork and I worked on it at weekends. She was launched with the aid of a bottle of pomagne by my wife Janet in August 1985, though it was not until the following year that I actually managed to get it rigged and sailing. The project that I thought that I could ‘knock off’ in a couple of years, had taken eight.
To the great relief of the River Cruiser class I felt that two leviathans, Farthing and Cuckoo were quite sufficient for the Norfolk Broads. When Cuckoo was launched, I cut up the mould at Somerleyton and it went to the local tip.
I cannot tell this story about Farthing without acknowledging the people who made it possible. Firstly, and most importantly my wife, Janet, who always supported me. I especially thank my friend John Taylor. I could not have built the boat without his encouragement and confidence coupled with the generous practical help of his broad range of talents.
My Willingham friends, Malcolm Sargeant and John Anderson for their often put upon, sometimes bewildered, but always good humoured assistance. Green Wyverns, David Snutch, Tim Munsey and Mike Sarson. The woodworking skills of Stephen Sanderson and the fibreglass expertise of Barry Sheppard. My thanks to them all.
Fifteen Years On.
Both boats have changed from wooden to aluminium masts. I have fitted an inboard 10hp diesel engine into Farthing’s forepeak, with a 20-foot propeller shaft through to a folding propeller at the back of the keel. The shape of the keel has changed three times. Cutting off the keel of a fibreglass boat, where it is an integral part of the hull, is not a task that should be undertaken lightly! I, of course, jumped in where more balanced individuals would not. Thankfully, I do seem to have got it about right now.
Dave Snutch successfully raced and cruised Cuckoo throughout the eighties but sold it in 1990(?). Since then she has changed hands twice and the last time I saw her, her topsides had been painted black.
After many years of mooring in Sanderson’s dyke at Reedham, Farthing now has a summer berth at Wroxham on the clubhouse mooring. My daughter, Melanie, who was eleven when Farthing was launched, graduated to become my indispensable crew. I gave her a half share for her twenty-first birthday. It was a very odd feeling indeed when I sat on the veranda at NBYC and watched her sail it for the first time by herself. Since then she has raced and cruised it extensively with her crew of mainly young ladies. I am pleased to say that I do quite regularly get invited to sail even though I am not regarded as crack racing crew. My talents are held in a higher regard for winter maintenance. It gives me great satisfaction that Farthing (Farrar’s Thing) has spanned a generation and is now used more than ever.
RF