Flaar 24 Sailboat Review, Specs, and Listings

Construction and Design

Almost the entire Flaar 24 is carbon fibre. The hull and deck are elaborate foam-sandwich laminates laid up with epoxy resin under vacuum, with solid laminate reserved for the keel area and a small keel housing kept deliberately compact carbon/epoxy composite hull made by vacuum infusion technology. Even the storage covers under the forward berth are feather-light carbon, and the keel fin itself is a double-skin, dimensionally stable carbon structure with a 220 kg lead insert at the lower end. Only the gennaker trunk and the extendable bowsprit are aluminium; the mast, boom, rudder blades, and keel shaft are all high-strength carbon. The swing keel is electrically actuated through a carbon weight bracket and can be fixed in any intermediate position, while the twin plug-in rudders aft are retractable and double-sided carbon. At 730 kg in measurement trim without engine and cushions — or 750 kg as a documented empty weight — she is astonishingly light for her 2.50 m beam and 7.20 m waterline, and her ballast ratio sits at almost 40 per cent, a figure more typical of a racer than a pocket cruiser.

Rig and Handling

The rig is a fractional sloop built around a Pauger carbon mast that is diamond-stayed over a single pair of narrow spreaders, with no lower shrouds and upper shrouds braced far aft diamond-stayed mast from Pauger. That arrangement clears the foretriangle for an overlapping genoa carrying 4.7 m² more area than the strong-wind jib, while a fixed carbon bowsprit hosts the Code Zero and an extendable aluminium gennaker trunk flies a 72.8 m² asymmetric spinnaker furled on a 1.40 m wide boom. Harken supplies nearly all deck hardware, with two winches and separate deflection blocks for gennaker and Code Zero sheets, and Gottifredi Maffioli provides the running rigging. On the water, writing in YACHT, test sailors found her planes easily from a true wind angle of 60 degrees at 3 to 4 Beaufort, surfs at around 9 knots on a half-wind course, and in a force 4 to 5 swell can be driven through the water at 13 or 14 knots. The twin rudder system gives ample grip though little feedback, and the lateral centre of gravity can be shifted aft to avoid windward lift; with the keel fully down she can be recovered from a 110-degree knockdown.

Accommodations

Below, the Flaar 24 is a spacious and bright interior for her length, with a comfortable berth plan for four adults — two forward, two amidships — and a crew capacity quoted from one to six. The cockpit floor carries angled footrests high enough to brace against when the boat is heeled, and seat height is a generous 97 centimetres. The low empty weight and retractable appendages mean she can be kept ashore without a mooring and trailered without a route permit, a mobility that reframes the usual trade-off between a performance hull and a boat you can actually store in a driveway.

Known Issues

The only criticism from period testing is a tiller judged a touch short for its length tiller judged slightly too short.

Refits and Ownership

Propulsion can be specified as an inboard electric unit or a 3 to 5 HP outboard, and the keel's electric linear drive was observed to cycle in under half a minute, with an LCD panel behind the companionway showing battery state and keel position. The clean separation of fixed and mobile rigging and the Harken/Gottifredi Maffioli spec mean wear items are standard and replaceable rather than proprietary.

The Verdict

The Flaar 24 is a genuine carbon cruiser-racer in trailerable clothing: a vacuum-infused sandwich shell, an electrically managed swing keel, and a diamond-stayed rig that makes 9-knot surfs and 14-knot slaloms reachable without stepping outside CE category C coastal limits. She is light enough to haul home and deep enough to recover from a knockdown, though the short tiller and twin-rudder feedback are the price of the concept.

Pros