The first time anyone lays eyes on the Maltese Falcon, you know they are going to be impressed, regardless of whether they are fans of big boats or not. Immediately you can see that there is something fundamentally different about it, but exactly what that is might not be so clear.
Then you look again, and realise – the sails are free standing – not a wire, cable, or rope in sight. These unusual masts and sails are the most visible of all the engineering and styling feats of the Maltese Falcon, but there are plenty more to be found when you look a bit closer.
The boat is the result of a collaboration between four men – Tom Perkins (the owner), Fabio Perini (the ship-builder), Gerard Dijkstra (the naval architect), and Ken Freivokh (the designer) – although of course there were dozens of companies, and hundreds of other people involved along the way too. Perkins is a relatively famous American venture capitalist, who has been involved in several well known companies over the years, from Hewlett-Packard, to Compaq, Genentech, and Phillips. He is also, of course, a huge yachting enthusiast, and had previously bought two boats from Fabio Perini’s ship building company, Perini Navi. The story of the Maltese Falcon starts in their Turkish shipyard, where an 88m hull had been built in the 1980s, but then left unused for the best part of a decade, before it was spotted by Perkins. Immediately he was interested, but only if the right design could be found – he didn’t want just another “normal” super yacht. When he saw the plans sent in by Gerard Dijkstra he knew instantly that it had to be the way forward; the scheme was unlike anything he has seen before.
Back in the 1960s, during a fuel crisis, a professor in Hamburg came up with a novel concept for a new type of sailboat – one where the masts themselves turned, rather than the sails pivoting around them. At the time, although the design seemed sound, and worked in a wind tunnel, the materials did not exist that would allow the concept to be turned into reality. Dijkstra had seen the concept, and when the brief from Perkins and Perini came through his letterbox, he renamed it DynaRig, where it formed the USP of his tender. Later on in the process this would be renamed again to FalconRig.
“This sail arrangement, or rigging as it is known, takes its inspiration from a class of ships known as the Clippers.”
This sail arrangement, or rigging as it is known, takes its inspiration from a class of ships known as the Clippers. These were the last of the wind powered freight ships, designed, built and used in the mid to late 19th century, and they were incredibly fast for the time – assuming that the wind was pointing in the right direction. When sailing closer to the direction of the wind, they were not nearly as efficient, and this is where the FalconRig is much improved. It maintains the large sail area of the clippers, but because the masts can rotate, they are much more efficient, even when sailing almost directly into the wind.
A further specification of the boat was that she had to be able to be sailed by a single man, without any crew whatsoever. Although this sounds incredible, and it is, there have been boats of a similar size before that have accomplished the same thing, although they were using conventional ropes, pulleys and winches – all automated of course. The FalconRig would need an entirely different control system, and this is one area where Navi Perini had special expertise. After months of testing, they established that it was feasible to make the control systems, so the next stage was to test whether or not the materials existed yet which could handle the enormous forces that would act on the masts.
The sail configuration had been tested in a wind tunnel at speeds of up to 100 knots, and it was found that the loads were comparable to those that would be found on a conventional boat. This did not mean that the masts could be made conventionally though – normal masts are neither free standing, nor do they have to rotate into the wind with the sails up. In any application where strength is needed at a very light weight, it is common to find carbon fibre, whether in race cars, space shuttles, or boats, and this was no exception. Each of the three masts is between 55 and 58m long, and the amount of carbon fibre used in their construction was the largest ever in a civilian project. Obviously the force required to turn the masts when the sails were out and the wind was blowing would be gigantic; each mast is set into a 9 tonne bearing, with 4 hydraulic motors capable of producing 1 million Nm of torque. That is the equivalent of 1000 Bentley Arnage Turbo engines on each mast! When the laborious task of hand making each mast was completed, they were lowered millimetre by millimetre down into the boat by a huge crane, over the course of a day. It must have been an indescribable relief when the last one went in safely – any mistake could have cost thousands or even millions of dollars to put right.
Another of the boat’s unique features is how the sails work. Each mast actually has 5 individual sails, which are stored, rolled up, inside the mast itself. Unfurling of the sails is done by a rope (outhaul) at both the top and bottom of the sail, which can pull each sail in or out in 75 seconds. From starting with all sails stowed to having a full sail plan takes only 6 minutes, and it can be performed by a remote control panel, meaning the captain can control the boat from anywhere onboard – or even from another boat or on-shore if they wanted.
Of course, there is a dedicated bridge as well, but like the rest of the boat it does not conform to the typical pattern. There is no wheel in sight – in fact the whole place looks much more like a set from Star Trek than anything you would expect to see on a yacht. Multifunctional flat screen panels hang freely suspended at the front of the bridge, and the main control seat is set back a couple of metres from here, also with its own set of instruments. Even though there is clearly a lot of information on show, it is impressive how Perini Navi has managed to make it all look so simple and uncluttered.
This theme of simple elegance and functionality runs through the whole boat, both in the large design features, such as the triple height stairway winding round the main mast, to the smaller ones like the leather wine bottle holders in the boardroom. In order to keep coherence, one man was chosen to design both the interior and exterior of the boat - Ken Freivokh. It was a job that you might expect to have been split in two, but he and his team managed to pull off both aspects very well, as is obvious from the pictures.
The outside of the boat will always be dominated by the incredible FalconRig setup, but he has added some great touches, like the functionally necessary “Spider”, which you can see at the base of the rear mast. Inside there is a mixture of wood, carbon fibre and metal, crafted into an array of furniture: almost everything from the beds to the desks are custom made one-off items. Much of the colour schemes and materials used were chosen to compliment Tom Perkins’s art collection which adorns the walls – most of the pieces are very modern and colourful, which means the furnishing follows suit.
“Although no one who knows will say, it is thought that the total cost of the build was between $200-300m.”
Building an 88m yacht is never going to be cheap – and this is doubly so when such a huge amount of time and money has to go into developing fundamental parts of the design from scratch. Taking into account all the development time, it is thought that between 3 and 4 million man hours were used from start to finish on the project. Although no one who knows will say, it is thought that the total cost of the build was between $200-300m. That’s not too bad for unique world-first yacht design, especially when it can reach speeds of up to 25 knots (so far – it may well go faster in the future).
Even if your surname isn’t Perkins, it is still possible to spend time on the boat. Yacht brokers Edmiston were the first to set up a charter – for a piffling €350,000 per week. This price includes a crew of 16, but you still have to pay for food and wine. Bear in mind that if you pay up hoping to set a new speed record your dreams will be dashed. Tom Perkins has made it clear that he must be on the boat any time a new record is set. It’s a real shame – I would have booked in a couple of weeks otherwise.
If your curiosity has been piqued by this article, there has just been a book published that you should take a look at. "The Maltese Falcon, Art of Inovation", published by Superyacht Art, is quite light on words, but heavy on pictures. That is no bad thing, there are enough facts to go around, but most of the appeal is in the super high quality artwork. A worthy coffee table book indeed.
