The Kraken: Raising the Bar in the South Pacific

Regular contributor Jim Yares of the Catana 472 Roam dropped us a note to ask if we knew anything about the Formosa 51 Fair Seas, which reportedly sailed from California to the South Pacific in the late ‘80s.

He’s asking because, while visiting Neifu, Vava’u, Tonga, he and wife Pam walked into a waterfront bar/restaurant called The Kraken, and were surprised to see that not only was Fair Seas part of the décor, the whole establishment was built around the boat. He got talking to the owner, an Australian expat named Andrew Jones, who related the California connection. Jones also understood that the couple who’d brought the boat south hauled it out in 1991 and lived aboard for a while on the hard.

Jones built The Kraken during COVID. “The Formosa was too big to move so he just built the bar around it and incorporated it into the design of the building,” Jim says. “It’s the complete hull, with the exception of the notch he cut out of the stern. He uses it as a storeroom and to separate the kitchen from the dining room.”

Jones would like to know more about the history of the boat, which is why Jim wrote us, generously noting, “If anyone knew the history of the boat, it would be Latitude 38.”

We sure appreciate Jim’s confidence. But after searching the archives, reaching out to our usual “C.I.s”, much head scratching, and a lot of “ums” and “ers” — we drew a collective blank.

And now we’re dying to know, too. So we turn to our most dependable resource of all: our readers.

Can anyone out there help with the story and/or backstory of Fair Seas? Share in the comments below or email us: [email protected].