Maltese Falcon (yacht)
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''Maltese Falcon'' is a
full-rigged ship A full-rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing ship, sailing vessel with a sail plan of three or more mast (sailing), masts, all of them square rig, square-rigged. Such a vessel is said to have a ship rig or be ship-rigged, with each mas ...
using DynaRig technology, which was built by
Perini Navi Perini Navi is an Italian shipyard based in Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy. It was founded in 1983 by Fabio Perini, who pioneered automation and furling systems in large sailing yachts. The ships it built are among the world's largest. In 2021 P ...
in
Tuzla, Istanbul Tuzla is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. It has a population of 288,878 (2022) and a land area of 138 km2 . It is on the Asian side of the city next to the municipality of Pendik. Tuzla is on a headland on the coa ...
, and commissioned by her first owner, Tom Perkins. She is one of the world's most complex and largest sailing yachts at , similar in size to the ''
Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarde ...
'' and ''
Eos In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Eos (; Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek ''Ēṓs'', Attic Greek, Attic ''Héōs'', "dawn", or ; Aeolic Greek, Aeolic ''Aúōs'', Doric Greek, Doric ''Āṓs'') is the go ...
''. The vessel dropped its BVI flag in 2008 and was purchased by Pleon Ltd, which put it to
charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...
use.


Vessel

The bare hull was built and launched on speculation in 1989-1990 by
Perini Navi Perini Navi is an Italian shipyard based in Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy. It was founded in 1983 by Fabio Perini, who pioneered automation and furling systems in large sailing yachts. The ships it built are among the world's largest. In 2021 P ...
at its newly acquired shipyard in
Tuzla, Istanbul Tuzla is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. It has a population of 288,878 (2022) and a land area of 138 km2 . It is on the Asian side of the city next to the municipality of Pendik. Tuzla is on a headland on the coa ...
, but found no takers in the aftermath of the
Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...
. Tom Perkins, a keen yachtsman and the owner of the two '' Andromeda La Dea'' Perini ketches, took an interest in the hull. In 2001 he hired Dutch yacht designers at Dykstra Naval Architects to investigate 19th-century clippers and propose a three-mast
square rig Square rig is a generic type of sail plan, sail and rigging arrangement in which a sailing ship, sailing vessel's primary driving sails are carried on horizontal spar (sailing), spars that are perpendicular (or wikt:square#Adjective, square) to t ...
for the project. The " DynaRig" concept, a 1960s invention by German hydraulics engineer
Wilhelm Prölss Wilhelm may refer to: People and fictional characters * William Charles John Pitcher, costume designer known professionally as "Wilhelm" * Wilhelm (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname Other uses * Wilhe ...
intended to operate cargo ships with a fuel-saving philosophy and as few crew as possible, met with Perkins' approval, and the project was signed into build in Tuzla. The three self-standing rotating carbonfiber masts were not a Perini Navi deliverable; they were manufactured and fitted to the yacht at the Perini Navi premises in Tuzla under the direct responsibility of Perkins and the supervision of Insensys, Ltd, a British carbonfiber specialist. Ken Freivokh designed the vessel's interior decoration, and Perini Navi fitted her out. The ship was completed in 2006. The yacht is easily controlled and has been seen to sail off her anchor and away from berths within harbors. The yacht's sophisticated computer detects parameters such as wind speed automatically and displays key data. An operator must always activate the controls, yet it is possible for a single person to operate the yacht. In a radio interview for the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
World Service's Global Business programme broadcast in December 2007, Perkins claimed that he personally wrote some of the yacht's unique control software. On 4 November 2007, in a ''
60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style o ...
'' profile, Perkins suggested the yacht cost more than $150 million but less than $300 million, refusing to be more specific. ''Maltese Falcon'' is operated as a charter yacht.


Rig

Damon Roberts of Insensys, Ltd. was responsible for designing and manufacturing the DynaRig of ''Maltese Falcon'' at the Perini Navi premises in Tuzla, Istanbul. The design, testing and manufacturing of the system was completed over a three-year period. Exhaustive
finite element analysis Finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical models, mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural ...
and carbon fiber testing were carried out to ensure that the complete assembly would sustain the loads under sail. The DynaRig owes its origin to Wilhelm Prölss' research in the 1960s. The DynaRig consists of freestanding rotating masts with rigid
yards The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3  feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly ...
and acts as a
square rig Square rig is a generic type of sail plan, sail and rigging arrangement in which a sailing ship, sailing vessel's primary driving sails are carried on horizontal spar (sailing), spars that are perpendicular (or wikt:square#Adjective, square) to t ...
. Each of ''Maltese Falcon''s masts supports six yards, which, unlike a conventional square rigger, have built-in camber of 12%. The fifteen square sails are set between the yards in such a way that when deployed there are no gaps in the sail plan of each mast, enabling them to act as a single airfoil. The furling sails are stored in the mast and can be deployed along tracks on the yards in 6 minutes. The sails are trimmed by rotating the masts. As there is no rigging, the masts and yards can be rotated without restriction for all points of sail, making ''Maltese Falcon'' a capable upwind clipper. The length of the masts measures approximately above the bottom bearing. As the rig can be tacked to allow flow in both directions, the mast rotates about deck and keel bearings and have symmetrical elliptical sections for better aerodynamics in both flows. Insensys also incorporated a
fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...
al strain monitoring system into the spars to analyse real time loads under sail. A
fiber Bragg grating A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is a type of distributed Bragg reflector constructed in a short segment of optical fiber that reflects particular wavelengths of light and transmits all others. This is achieved by creating a periodic variation in th ...
system was embedded during wet layup of the carbonfiber structure. The loads are transmitted to the bridge monitors.


Prizelist

''Maltese Falcon'' has received industry prizes from shipowners and the press. It has also won the Perini Navi Cup regattas on two occasions as well as the Palma Superyacht Cup in 2010. *2007 Boat International World SuperYacht Award – Best Sailing Yacht Interior *2007 Boat International World SuperYacht Award – Best Sailing Yacht 45m and above *2007 Boat International World SuperYacht Award – Sailing Yacht of the Year *2007 Showboats international Award – most innovative sailing yacht *2007 Showboats international Award – best sailing yacht over 40m *2007 Showboats international Award – best sailing yacht interior *2007 Showboats international Award – highest technical achievement in a sailing yacht *2007 International SuperYacht Society – best sailing yacht over 36m *2009 Perini Navi Cup *2010 Palma Superyacht Cup *2011 Perini Navi Cup * David A. Kaplan's authorised biography ''Mine's Bigger: Tom Perkins and the Making of the Greatest Sailing Machine Ever Built'' won the Gerald Loeb Award for best business book of 2008. *2012 Yacht Capital Marina Yachting *2013 First Baccarat SuperYacht World trophy - Finest SuperYacht Ever *2018 Perini Navi Cup


History

''Maltese Falcon'' was involved in a collision on October 4, 2008, with a sloop while sailing on the
San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
during the Leukemia Cup. ''Maltese Falcon'' was still listed for sale in 2009 by Camper & Nicholsons with an asking price of €115m and 1,899 hours logged on the engines when it was reported that it had already dropped flag in 2008 and been sold by Burgess who listed it for €70m.


See also

* ''Black Pearl'' (Also DynaRig sailing yacht, 2018) *
List of yachts built by Perini Navi This is a list of all the yachts built by italian ship manufacturer Perini Navi and its subsidiary Cantiere Navale Beconcini, sorted by year. 1974-1994 1995-2004 2005-2014 2015 - Present Under construction Concept See also * List ...
*
List of large sailing yachts This article lists active sailing yachts of and upwards in length. This list features vessels with sails which were classed as yachts when they were launched as well as any vessels which were subsequently converted to operate with sails and re-cl ...
*
Luxury yachts A superyacht or megayacht is a large and luxurious pleasure vessel. There are no official or agreed upon definitions for such yachts, but these terms are regularly used to describe professionally crewed motor or sailing yachts, ranging from to ...


References


Further reading

* * * *


External links

* *
perininavi.it - ''Maltese Falcon''marinetraffic.com - ''Maltese Falcon''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maltese Falcon Individual sailing yachts Three-masted ships Ships built in Istanbul 1990 ships