Maltese Falcon ... hit or miss?

I think we will have to ask the new owner, then the next one , then the next one, and so on.
Daniel

 

Sailing Superyachts & Catamaran Amarylis

I think you would find that most of the big SAILING superyachts are like this...wide open spaces without adequate had holds in all areas...and as they heel it becomes more exaggerated at the beam ends...just a fact of life in BIG sailing vessels.

In general I believe Maltese Falcon was to be limited to 15 degrees of heel for most occasions. But Tom Perkins is a SAILOR, and he wanted to be able to sail her at good speeds and raildown to experience that sensation in a BIG boat. Thank goodness there are these type sailors of big veesls as well as small, or we may never have seen this vessel materialize. I'm glad he came along to put an exciting, unconventional sailing vessel on the water.

I shutter to think of all of the negatives spoken about multihull craft entering the sailing market in years past, and receiving the same warm welcome from the conservative market....those craft will never be accepted!!

Here is one very famous yacht designers attempt to introduce his 'unconventional' sailing craft:
The AMARYLIS, How the Yachting Wonder of 1876 was Conceived and Built
"I can with a good whole-sail breeze, boat to windward faster, by a mile an hour at least, than any other sailing vessel afloat." -Nathanael Herreshoff , the infamous yacht designer speaking of his revolutionary 25' catamaran design, Amarylis.

 

I've only been in one large vessel that was heeling badly, but that was in a full Atlantic gale and the ship was rocking back and forth. Not a comfortable sensation and there were a lot of passenger injuries on that voyage, but a ship under sail would mostly heel one way whch is easier to live with IMHO. A max of 15 deg doesn't sound too scary.

 

I finally found that photo of the test vessel that has eluded me for so long.

 

Great Summary & Big Photos

Check out this website presentation....very complete summary with some big format photos:
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/perini-navi-yacht/13488-review-perini-navi-289-clipper-yacht-maltese-falcon.html

 

....and a nice youtube video of MF:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSE87_PadA8

 

David and Goliath

I'm a wee bit late reporting this news, as somehow I was totally unaware of it :?:. I must have been somewhere in outer space.

Maltese Falcon vs Gunboat cat



...excerpted from the start of the TransAtlantic 2011 Race..
Newport, R.I. USA (June 29, 2011) – This morning, the tension was mounting dockside as 14 yachts made final preparations before they took the second start of the Transatlantic Race 2011 in a spectacular scene full of drama.

While the first start of the day produced some high drama, the start for the two yachts in the Open Class was just as extraordinary. As the magnificent 298’ Maltese Falcon unfurled acres of canvas and entered the starting area, the Gunboat 66, Phaedo, owned by Lloyd Thornburg (St. Barthelemy) was dwarfed in comparison. Phaedo is one of the world’s most head-turning maritime creations and the carbon fibre, Lamborghini-orange catamaran has become one of the most well-known yachts on the regatta circuit. However, the spectacle of the Art Deco giant, Maltese Falcon, dominated the proceedings, announcing its intentions with a bone-rattling blast of colossal air-horns to warn spectator yachts that they were about to tack for the line. It was a full five minutes before the three rotating rigs, each weighing 30 tons, completed their revolutions and Maltese Falcon heeled over bound for the start of the Transatlantic Race 2011. Phaedo, however, was far more exuberant and timed the approach to perfection, coming up under Maltese Falcon. At first they were caught in the enormous wind shadow of their leviathan nemesis, but as Phaedo came out of the wind hole, gasping for air, the crew onboard hauled in the sheets. Pulling the trigger, Phaedo accelerated away from the opposition, but not for long. Weighing in at an unbelievable 1110 tons, Maltese Falcon soon overhauled Phaedo and the rest of the fleet in today’s start, achieving a boat speed of over 14 knots.
http://www.transatlanticrace.org/news/53-2011-news/297-ocean-theatre-dramatic-spectacle.html

 

Hit. But seeing MF hard on the wind and looking how her weather leeches are always lifting and flapping makes me think they have too much curve in the yards.
Old ships with flax sails used "bowlines" to tension the weather leech in this situation for the same reason.

 

The fact they can't twist the rig, make the MF a failure with this rig.
The minimum effort to run the ship and small crew is not a finality on itself, it is just a fantasy from wealthy who are cater by philanderers. AKA designer, builder and so on.
They take the money knowing it will not work. It happens all the time.
Magazine and snobs call that "pushing the envelop"
Don't tell me that the whole famous name involve in this stupidity didn't know it will not work. They are no foul. But they are quite good at business.
Lister

 

Rig MF schooner for' an' aft with plenty of good man, she will go twice the speed, she will have far more stability, and will have cost one third of her insane price.
But less ego and less $ from everyone.
Lister

 

Only one who had zero experience in square rig would make some of the absurd claims on this topic. A thousand tonner with fore and aft rig? Dumb idea. What rig did the last ocean carriers use up until the 1930s? Most of them were 4 masted barques carrying grain or guano, not schooners. Why? Because they made money in the trades they were in. Schooners and ketches were used in coastwise traffic, carrying much smaller cargoes, where their handiness and greater windward flexibility gave them the advantage. But for the open ocean with a voyage planned in favorable winds, nothing else wind-powered on earth can beat a proper square rigger if you count the thousand tons of cargo. Yeah, a catamaran with nothing but young males and credit cards aboard can go fast, but can't move anything. MF shows us what could be.
No, she won't go faster with fore and aft rig, certainly not twice the speed, and MF is a fantastic engineering exercise and demonstration platform in experimental modern square rig.
Now, make it work economically for a bulk tanker or a container ship and we're getting somewhere and I don't mean the 19th century.
Someone, somewhere, will figure out a trade that will make a profit from the winds and build a ship of the future.

 

Just in case anyone gets the wrong idea, Pheado crushed MF across the atlantic, 66ft of Multihull vs 298ft of mono, id say a big miss.
Steve.

 

1000 tons versus what, 7 tons?

 

They had to make the most reasonable compromise as to the curve in the yards (12.5 degrees of arc), and it turned out to be the same as the original proposal by the original professor.

They figured it would get that MUCH MORE complicated to try and account for twist in the apparent wind with height of the rig...so there is none. ( the yardarms are rigidly attached to the rotating mast unlike the old sq riggers with fixed mast that yardarms could swing around idividually).

And I agree with you...a fantastic project that could have only been funded by someone with the money to do so. It certainly is nice to have someone experiment with a sailing vessel, rather than just building another audacious power yacht

 

A rather extravagant experiment, but some people did have plenty of money for indulgences back then... But how much real knowledge gained?

Here she is from my hotel room in the Azores a while back. When departing they had the audacity to blast their horns long and loud and often enough to make sure everybody within 3 miles would stop what they were doing to take a look. After a while I was wondering if I could re-align one of the "noisemakers" in the photo foreground and respond! New owners now, probably a bit less inclined to "look at me!" antics. Well... one can hope.