A friend alerted me to a Farr 5000 which was lying unloved in a boatyard near him.
A brief inspection, some haggling and she was mine.

I towed her home, 450 kms north from Perth Western Australia to Greenough, and work started at a fairly easy pace.

The boat had obviously had a hard life followed by almost 10 years of total neglect.

​I decided to use a scaled down Pilmer rig from PJR, taking out one of the lower panels and adding a third triangular one as this would allow me to cut the panels from the width of cloth I was able to buy.

They only had green and it was on special, so green it is.
I purchased about 30% more than I needed, marked out and cut the panels and had a local upholsterer sew it for me.

I had them join the panels and attach the batten pockets as shown in Arne’s instructions, sew a 3mm rope around the whole sail, and then I hand sewed an 8mm boltrope to that, as also shown in Arne’s articles.

Thank you Arne I definitely couldn’t have done it without you.


Being a beginner, I had decided to go for a flat sail.

However, I made the batten pockets oversize for my 20 mm battens, which may have unwittingly given me some camber. The sail is about 14 square meters, similar to the original rig.

As good timber is very hard to get here, I decided to use aluminium tube for the mast, readily available from a local supplier and relatively cheap.
I extended a 6000 x 100 x 3.25mm tube with part of a 80 x 3mm tube, (using the off cut for my yard).

To fill the gap between the 100mm and the 80mm tubes I cut two pieces of 80mm tube, split and stretched them and glued and glassed them to the extension, then glued and glassed the 1200mm extension inside the main mast section with a 400mm bury and faired the join, making a 6800mm mast.

I put a wooden plug in the top and drilled eyebolts through to support the various attachments.
The boat was built with a very small hatch 400 mm in front of the mast step. This and the internal furniture forced me to place the mast in that position.

So, studiously avoiding all formulae, that is where the partners are. The bury is 1200mm. I was a bit concerned the mast may not be far enough forward, and gave it some forward rake to compensate.

After a couple of unsuccessful attempts at stepping the mast, it dawned on me to use the original as a crane, as all the chainplates are still in place. This works brilliantly.

The running rigging is similar to Pilmer with triple sheet spans connected to a 3 part mainsheet working off the original traveller, now mounted on a horse mounted above the transom at about cabin height.

To control the luff I have the same luff hauling parrel and a fixed tack parrel and a tack line to hold the sail forward. The topping lift is in 2 pieces and runs through pulleys at the masthead on a single tail.

The main halyard is a single purchase led back to a small capstan winch. All the controls are easily accessed from the cockpit.​

So now the launching. In a light breeze I sailed around the marina and she tacked and jibed beautifully and effortlessly.

A couple of weeks later I sailed again in 15+ knots of wind outside the marina and she handled the full rig very well and seemed to tack through about 90 degrees, which is good enough for me.

She did 4.5 knots on the wind and up to 6 knots reaching, with the rig not set up very well, and light to firm weather helm.​

Bugsy is home again, while I complete more work, now that I know she’s a goer.

Why Bugsy you ask?

After first inspecting her, crawling around the inside strewn with sails, rotting bits and pieces and dirt I came up with a multitude of bites and rashes which can only have been some sort of bug, or mites.

Hey, I could have called her Mighty!