A canoe-sterned cutter with a bowsprit: a hand-laid glass hull, a deck cored with end-grain wood and overlaid with teak, a single casting glassed into the full keel, and, as built, a wheel. Robert Perry’s own list of production boats calls the Tashiba 36, which followed her at the same yard, a refinement of her.
Whether that casting is iron or lead the sources disagree: a dealer’s sheet for a hull of 1979 says cast iron glassed over, Sailing Magazine’s review says lead. Her interior joinery is what the yard is known for, and the saloon has six feet four inches of headroom.
She had never raced the Golden Globe before 2026. Exodus, a hull of 1980, was bought by Daniel Pinsky in Oct 2025 with her wheel already replaced by a tiller and much of the structural work done, and refitted in the Caribbean and France in the months before the start.
One boat, one race, 62 days in: what the race has measured is thin, and this page fills as she sails.
Her one start: racing, 6th on day 62.
One started: racing now.
In 8 kt of wind and more, where she and the other designs have twenty legs or more each, her largest gain is on a broad reach in 12–16 kt, +3%, and her largest loss, on a close reach in 8–12 kt, −14%.
| Wind | upwind 0–60° | close reach 60–90° | reaching 90–130° | broad reach 130–160° | running 160–180° | Legs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 71 | ||||||
| 99 | ||||||
| 91 | ||||||
| – | – | 47 | ||||
| – | – | – | – | 15 | ||
| – | – | – | 15 |
What the record and the figures support, point by point, and what they weigh against her.
Waterline 9.03 m, 3rd of 17 of the designs that have raced; displacement 9,072 kg, 4th of 17; hull speed 7.3 kt, 3rd of 17.
“She sails beautifully and is easily balanced”, and “points remarkably well in all directions but best on a reach”, say her owners in Sailing Magazine; the heavy displacement and the full keel give a very comfortable motion at sea, says a buyer’s guide.
A single casting glassed into the keel: 40% of her displacement, 13th of 17.
Ta Shing was one of a small group of Taiwanese yards that won “a reputation for masterful craftsmanship and solid construction” in the seventies and eighties, says Sailing Magazine’s review; owners call the construction “rock solid”, and the review puts the joinery “among the most impressive in the industry”.
Slow in breezes under 8 kt, says the buyer’s guide; initially tender before stiffening at about twenty degrees of heel, says the dealer’s own sheet.
Under 8 kt of wind her boats measured −8% against the other designs, and in 20 kt and more −1%.
“Leaky teaky” is what some owners call the decks; blistered hulls, steel fuel tanks that corrode, a holly sole prone to delaminating and rotten bowsprits complete the review’s list for an older hull. Worn bungs let water into the deck’s core, and the fuel tanks and chainplates can be hard to reach for repair, says the buyer’s guide.
The dealer’s sheet says cast iron glassed over, the magazine says lead. Iron sits higher in the keel for the same weight and, in an old hull, wants watching for rust wherever water reaches it.
- Sailing Magazine, “Baba 35”, David Liscio, 1 Mar 2016 (the origin, the yard, the number built, the lead keel, the headroom, the owners, the weak points)
- A dealer’s sheet for a Baba 35 of 1979, kept by West Yachts of Anacortes (the construction, the iron ballast, the wheel, the early heel)
- Listings Port, “Ta Shing Baba 35” (the light air, the motion, the joinery, the deck core, the tanks and chainplates), and Robert Perry’s own list of production boats (the Tashiba 36 as a refinement)
- Wikipedia, “Baba 30” (the name)
- The race’s skipper page for Daniel Pinsky (the boat, the purchase, the refit), and its live broadcast of the Lanzarote sail-past, 18 Sep 2026 (the wheel and the tiller)
- Notice of Race 2026: J.1.2 (the approved designs)
- The figures: the dealer's brochure kept by the owners' association (34 ft 10½ in, 29 ft 7½ in, 11 ft 2 in, 5 ft 6 in, 20,000 lb, 8,000 lb, 716 sq ft); the years and number built from Sailing Magazine. The race's skipper page (Daniel Pinsky) prints 35 ft (10.67 m) overall, 29.17 ft (8.89 m) on the waterline, 11.50 ft (3.51 m) of beam, 19,500 lb (8,845 kg) and 667 sq ft (61.97 m²); a 1979 dealer's sheet prints 21,140 lb (9,589 kg) and 34 ft 11 in on deck.
What the figures mean. Waterline: the longer, the faster a heavy hull can go. Hull speed: 1.34 × √waterline in feet, the old rule of thumb. Displacement to length: above 300 is heavy; every design here is but the OE 32. Sail area to displacement: under 16 is under-canvassed by modern lights. The middle line is the median of the designs that have the figure: seventeen, or fewer where a source does not give it. Lengths are printed to the centimetre and areas to a tenth of a square metre, whatever the source’s own precision, and the ratios are worked from the figures as printed here.
How she is measured. Every 4-hour leg with a model wind on which the boat was moving (0.2 kt and more): this race’s since the start, and each boat’s whole race in 2018 and 2022, to her finish or her retirement (what a boat sailed after she retired is not counted). A leg’s wind is the model wind at its two ends, averaged as vectors, so its speed is that of the mean wind (a few legs of 2018 and 2022 carry the wind at one end only). The past races have no ocean current, so all three are measured alike: speed over the ground, and the wind’s angle off the course made good. Like for like sets each leg against the other designs’ legs of the same race in the same 3 kt of wind and 15° of angle; the heat map and the polar set her median in each wind and angle, over all her legs there, against the other designs’ medians in the races she sailed, each race weighted by her legs in it. Every figure is a median, and each measures the boat as she was sailed: the sailor, her sails and the state of her hull are in it, a hull under barnacles too. More on the Method page.