FAR NIENTE WINS THE FARR 40 WORLDS

Brun & Freides Create The Winning Combination

Long time North Sails legend Vince Brun and his boat partner (and long-time friend) Drew Freides put together a strong program for the 2019 Farr 40 World Championship and sailed brilliantly to come away with a win over a talented international field in Long Beach, CA. Over a wide variety of conditions in the eleven-race regatta, team Far Niente showed great boat speed, excellent tactics, and solid starts to take the victory over last year’s champion Strungie Light from Germany. Competitors from Australia, Germany, Canada, Uruguay, Great Britain, Mexico and the US enjoyed a great week of racing in Southern California in a total of fourteen teams.

The Prep

Vince and Drew have had the boat for several years, but did only a few local regattas in the San Diego Bay area. When the World Championship was awarded to Long Beach Yacht Club, a team was assembled, a work list was started, and sails were ordered. Two weekends of training and tuning were set up but not a lot of fleet racing was done until just before the event started. The trimming team of Vince, John Hayes, Eric Doyle and Charlie Smythe worked very hard to improve the rig tune, boat handling, and trimming techniques throughout the whole event. Under the watchful eye of coach Ed Adams, changes and improvements were being made right up until the last day. Drew Freides commented; “We had the very best team and kept an open mind to learn and try new setups. These were the keys for our success. We were improving our performance every race.”

“We knew we had a good boat, but in any one design program you need fast sails.”

Conditions

The conditions were typical Long Beach sea breeze the first day but then were generally on the light side. Lots of 7 to 11 knot races with nice flat water. Powering the boat up as quickly as possible was the key to success upwind. Maintaining speed at the correct angle was paramount downwind and in light conditions it required maximum concentration and teamwork.

The Sails

“We knew we had a good boat, but in any one design program you need fast sails,” said Vince Brun. Team Far Niente’s upwind sails were 780 3Di RAW and performed well throughout the wind range winning races in everything from 8-22 knots, using tuning suggested settings practically straight from the standard North Sails Tuning Guide. Vince Brun commented; “Having good sails is not enough, you need to know how to use the sails. Just like a big family, we contacted the North Sails Farr 40 experts around the world and they shared everything they knew, making it easier for us to get up to speed.”

Rob Davis and his team Nutcracker also used a full inventory of North Sails to finish 4th overall.