Farrier Marine is a catamaran and trimaran manufacturer based in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The sailing boats produced by this shipyard are designed by Ian Farrier (1947-2017),[1] and have a unique patented folding system without hinges in the beams or the critical beam to float join, allowing overall beam to be varied in seconds by just one person.[2]
After gaining hands-on experience from building and sailing his own sailboats, Ian Farrier designed a trimaran folding system and applied in 1973 for a patent that was granted in 1975 as the Farrier Folding System.[3]
In 1974, the original prototype was built and launched by Farrier in Australia, followed in 1976 by the first Trailertri 18, and in 1980 by the first production fiberglass Farrier trimaran, the 'Tramp',[4] that was named Australian Boat of the Year in 1981.[citation needed]
In 1984, Ian Farrier funded by Corsair Marine in the US and started designing and building the F-27 trimaran Super Fox which set a race record in her first official event - the Two Man Around Catalina Race, a feat she repeated on 1986. In 1989, The F-27 CORSAIR won the multihull division of the Newport - Ensenada Race.
For the first time in history the Nippon Ocean Racing Club recognised the F-27 as an official class in 1990, and during the same year the F-27 AQUA TEC won the Australian Multihull Offshore Championships (AMOC). F-27s were also the first multihulls invited to compete in the National Offshore One Design Regatta (N.O.O.D.).[5]
In 1991, Ian Farrier decided to leave the management of Corsair Marine to focus on new designs,[6] but continued under a licencing agreement.[7] Shortly thereafter the F-9A design was launched by Farrier Marine, together with the F-31 (production version of F-9A), that in 1992 was named Australian Sailboat of the Year.[4] They were followed by the F-25C, the F-31, and the Corsair F-28, judged as Sailing World's 1998 Performance Multihull Sailboat of the Year.[8]
In 2001, Ian Farrier decided to part from Corsair Marine, stating that Farrier Marine had provided Corsair with all its production guides in the past, while regularly monitoring construction, quality and specification compliance, all of which took considerable time. After the separation, more time could be devoted to providing a larger range of both lower cost and more technically advanced designs, such as the F-22, F-32, F-33, F-39, F-41 and F-44SC.[9] After abandoning Corsair Marine, Farrier announced a plan version of the F-33 production model named the F-32. In 2003, the F-33 was launched in Australia. In September 2007, the first F-39 was launched, followed in May 2008 by the first F-22, in July 2009 by the release of the F-32SR design and in November 2010 by the F-85SR design.
December 2010 marked the first F-22 production float hull made and on 2011 the F-22 production version was released. However, after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake work on the new projects slowed a little, although the shipyard didn't suffer real casualties, apart from some damage at the moldmaker's factory, on the wall and floor.[10]
Farrier Marine's current[citation needed] product line is composed of the following models:
Note that these former models were designed by Ian Farrier earlier in his career[11] but may not have been produced by Farrier Marine.