Geoff Stagg Interview- The Last 30 years and the Next Ten
by Jim Bolland on 31 Mar 2009
The Glory Days - Geoff Stagg drives Ceramco with the rest of his watch back in the Members Stand. Ceramco NZ
As one of the hard men of New Zealand sailing, and a top offshore and trans-oceanic racer, Geoff Stagg became associated with Farr Yacht Design from late 1981, eventually becoming President of Farr International. In June 2005 he completed the purchase of Farr International, which is now known as Stagg Yachts Inc., based in Annapolis MD. USA. www.auldmug.com!Jim_Bolland published this interview with one of the icons of sailing in the April issue of 'A Brush with Sail'
A Brush with Sail: Geoff, your association with the Farr brand goes back to New Zealand, pre 1980, ocean racing and chasing around the cans in the one-tonners Granny Apple, Pacific Sundance and then of course, the defining moment came when you were selected as a watch captain in the crew of the late Sir Peter Blake's Farr designed, Whitbread Round the World racer, Ceramco New Zealand.
How did that experience lead to you joining Farr Yacht Design and what was your designated area of operation in your early years with #Farr?
Geoff Stagg: Actually Pacific Sundance came after the Whitbread race and was my first major project with Bruce Farr and Associates, as it was called in those days and Farr International, but more on that latter perhaps. My initial experience with Farr designs was firstly, Allan Martins quarter tonner, then Granny Apple, which we chartered from Graham Wall in Christchurch.
I got to know Bruce well when I flew to Auckland on many occasions to inspect Ceramco NZ with Peter Blake during the yacht’s construction and stayed with Bruce on several occasions. Peter Walker was Bruce’s right hand man in those days but Russ Bowler came along shortly thereafter. I knew Russ well, from my Cherub Class days. Once the race got under way I was approached by Russ and Bruce to join them and help set up a selling, marketing company in the US, where they were relocating to, in I think, early 1981.
As the race went on I had several jobs offered to me including one from Chris Bouzaid, who wanted me to go to work for Hood Sails in Marblehead. I had full intentions of returning to NZ and my old job, but Bruce gave it one more shot in Southhampton, at race end. But I was still not convinced. Some how ‘Chappy’ (the late Keith Chapman) and I landed up racing the 1981 Pan Am Clipper Cup on a Japanese boat, Big Apple. There was another meeting with Bruce in Hawaii after the race and I said lets give it a go, based on the condition that I would be a partner in the new company if it looked like it would fly. And the rest of course, is history.
I turned up in Annapolis in I think, late 1981 and Russ threw a phone book at me and said, ‘go sell some boats!’ They were really tough days as my arrival coincided with a big down turn in the US economy and Bruce and Russ had not long been in the US. First years salary was $12k, but I travelled a lot to sell boats and gradually we made headway. My job was to sell boats and perhaps most importantly get feed back to the design team after sailing on the boats, which I got to be really good at and in looking back I take pride in what I achieved to help put Bruce and Russ on the map. In summary, sales, project management and getting the early boats to perform well was the job function.
ABWS: During the majority of your time with Farr, you were President of Farr International, which was the sales engine behind the design brand. In that capacity you must have had a fair bit of input into the initial ideas of what were to become, the Mumm 30 and Farr 40 classes. I guess you would have been looking at the development from a flat out-racing man's perspective and I would think that your experience would have been of great assistance to the designers. Give us some idea how the two boats developed into world benchmark classes.
G.S: I would say that my contribution to the success of the F40 and M30 was insisting that the boats had enough sail area, looked proportionally pleasing to the eye, had a big rudder so they were easy to control and were fast and strong. I was also responsible for making sure we had a good written concept to start with, that Bruce could design too and of course, which he is so brilliant at. Of course it was a combined effort amongst all of us but I had some pretty fixed ideas of what I wanted to see, based primarily on my experience with the M36 and Platu 24.
Actually it all started with the M36, which started life as a production IMS 36 when Barry Carroll and Tink Chambers came up with the idea at the US sailing meetings and Airport bar at New Orleans in 1992, which resulted in Barry missing his plane. I knew very little about O/D at this time, however I was on the 4 person selection committee appointed by the RORC to choose the 3 boats for the 95 Admirals cup and it was a requirement to have an entry level 36 foot O/D boat on each team and it would be called the Mumm 36, in recognition of the long term sponsor Champagne Mumm.
We choose the ILC 46, ILC 40 and the M36, which was to go out to bid. Once we realized that our new F36 fit the criteria I advised the committee I would be tendering a bid and would therefore excuse myself from that decision. The first 3 boats did Block Island race week and were very successful. Shortly after that the RORC choose the F36 and we were flat out developing O/D rules and the boat for O/D production and basically set the blue print for O/D big boat classes going forward. The production systems and standards established by CML, Russ Bowler and Graham Williams, are still the benchmark to this day. Female moulded, vacuum bagged, cored, epoxy resin, heat cured production boats were unheard of in those days and are still today, very high tech.
Brian Fishback who worked with Farr Int. at this stage along with Russ, Bruce, Barry, Jim Anderson, Tink and my self worked extremely hard to develop the class rules which to this day I take tremendous pride in. The M30 and F40 have been a work in progress from these original rules since. From there we developed the M30, which was originally the idea of Dave Irish. This boat incorporated what was learnt from the M36 and Platu/Beneteau 25 and was designed with no consideration given to any rule influence of the time. Hence the M30 has high stability, generous sail area, a large rudder for its size, a bullet proof swept back carbon rig which has become the industry standard and a strong yet light structure in the hull and deck. As a consequence it is still in production today with 220 boats in 18 countries and to many sailors it is their favourite boat of all time.
One of the most defining items in the rule is the concept of real Corinthian owners having to drive their boats and adopting the then US Sailing sailor classification code, again the brain child of Dave Irish.
This I take particular pride in and to this day it gives me huge satisfaction to see the enjoyment real owners have in helming their boats and the very high skill levels they have achieved combined with the great results they have achieved sailing against the pros in other classes. Next to follow in 1996 was the Corel 45, when I managed to get Corel to buy the naming rights. Close to 30 of these great boats were built and have a strong following to this day in the UK.
In 1997, along came the F40. Peter Morton who at that time was doing a great job as Farr Int. Europe, had suggested we do a 38 but Barry and I felt that 40 was the magic size and off we went. The F40 was designed with IMS in mind without compromising the boat (as was the C45) when that rule was in a good place early on, by producing fast, high stability boats but boy did that change quickly and the rule quickly became stereo typed by producing slow, ugly, tippy boats with their bilges full of lead reminisce
If you want to link to this article then please use this URL: www.sail-world.com/55333