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Posted on Wednesday, 22 August 2007 |
 The Maltese Falcon is one of those phrases that makes people think 'oh yeah, what's that? A book I read, a movie I saw?' It is indeed a famous novel and movie directed by John Houston but to yacht spotters and superyacht fans everywhere it is one of the most spectacular racing superyachts to ever grace the waves.
The Falcon, as we shall affectionately call it, sailed into Monaco last year for the 16th Monaco Yacht Show, and thoroughly commanded the skyline, not to mention the sealine, for the four days of its occupancy.
Most people recognise that the Monaco Boat Show is the yearly French Riviera gathering place for the superyacht industry and so it takes no great leap of the imagination to conclude that this yacht is the fruition of some kind of dream, a zillionaires dream for sure.
Around the time of the show it was hailed as having the tallest masts. Of the show? In the world? It wasn't quite clear but it really didn't matter because any fool could see it was something pretty special. The masts, by the way, are 57 metres tall and may or may not be the tallest in the world but the Falcon is claimed to be the largest and fastest personal sailing yacht in the world and could possible add the moniker 'most expensive', costing in the region of €100 million to build. The stuff of zillionaires indeed.
The Maltese Falcon is the personal folly of American business man Tom Perkins. Perkins professional career has the lead weight seriousness upon which entire industries have been spawned. He is an MIT graduate, a Harvard business school graduate, a silicon valley pioneer, a company director many times over, an entrepeneur and a venture capitalist. He is also the author of a book called 'Sex and the Zillionaire'. A man with a sense of humour then?
A man who can build industries, run corporations, establish America's premier venture capital corporation and write a fluffy 'dicklit' novel called 'Sex and the Zillionaire' is a man of many facets it has to be deemed. It must also, however, take a considerable degree of imagination, courage and passion to conceive a project that results in the construction of a sailing yacht like the Maltese Falcon.
The sailboat was built by Italian superyacht experts Perini Navi and was built in Turkey. The 57 metre masts are not just exceptional for their height but also for their engineering making the Falcon something of a feat. Each of the three masts weighs 26 tons are contructed from lightweight carbon fibre, which was the largest single order of carbon fibre in history, are free standing and rotating. They can be set individually or as a single vast sail and can be turned, at the touch of a button, to whichever way the wind is blowing.
It has taken 300 labourers five years to complete and has been an exercise in every level of complexity invloved in building a yacht. Needless to say aside from being fast (19.6 knots), expensive, advanced and unique it is also the height of luxury and apointment with glass and leather floors encased behind its sleek exterior.
Yours for €350,000.00 a week if you fancy a cruise around the Med for a few days. Certainly the stuff of dreams, a zillionaires dreams for sure.
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