The Rebirth Of Recluta

How multiple generations of the Frers family came together to reproduce the classic sailing boat, Recluta.

- Dennis Lai

Across a span of two generations and 80 years, the design studio of German Frers – renowned for its successful racing yacht designs – has just completed its latest project: a racing vessel, Recluta. And upon her completion, she sailed for her first time, bearing parts of her namesake which was last seen during the Buenos Aires-Mar del Plata race of 1942.

Recluta’s story began when German Sr (18991986) helped change her rigging into a Bermuda type as a favour to his friend and her owner, Charles Badracco. That vessel had been built in 1901 by UK-based Camper & Nicholsons at its historic Gosport dockyard under another name and arrived in Argentina in 1940, where it was christened Recluta.

Alas, during the 1942 race, a terrible storm and an attempt to save an overboard crewmate caused her to run aground. Badracco salvaged what he could and dynamited what remained of the boat. Following this, he commissioned German Sr to design a successor to Recluta, which was to be the biggest sailing boat in South America at the time. Unfortunately, circumstances of the war led to a shortage of metals, causing its construction to be postponed. Over that period, the Frers family proved incredibly prolific, designing sailboats on commission for various boatyards and accounting for over 1,300 designs across three generations of Frers. Their boats would go on to grace Admiral’s Cup teams and America’s Cup campaigns, and German Jr also played a part in the Prada/Luna Rossa America’s Cup campaign in 2000.

German Jr, the man who successfully brought forth his father’s vision of a new Recluta, recalls: “When I first started working at my father’s studio, my father (German Sr) used to tell me about this one special boat that he never managed to build.”