| Perini Navi | 88M | "Maltese Falcon" | 2006/23 |

Aerial Images of Maltese Falcon taken with a drone

Great footage, although the music was ridiculously epic. At first, I thought multi-rotors were a fad, but they are turning into one of the most useful tools of the modern electronic age.

Another great use of Maltese Falcon's sails!!

Maltese FALCON Using SAILS As A MOVIE SCREEN - 22 Sept 2013 - YouTube

Very nice!

True, nice, but not unique, did it this year on a "smaller" boat

They seem to do it fairly often on MF, as I have seen several different pics over the last few years of them doing it.

That would be my ideal theater.

Dynarig,..another form of a Wingsail ?

Most of us have been treating the Dynarig as a modernized square rig. But in reality this rig has a lot in common with wingsails.

That said I wanted to reference a little 'blog' that SAIL mag recently sent out:
Have Wingsails Gone Mainstream

I will be expanding on this subject soon, ...some new ideas on alternative dynarig configurations.

Sorry, I do not speak English. Is there someone in the kitchen photo Maltese Falcon? Thank you.

Perhaps you mean something like this?....only one I could find at the moment.

Thank you, but it is a place of rest of the crew. And I mean it was the kitchen. Nowhere on the Internet does not. probably a secret facility ...))))

Home movies from Falcon's early testing

They first did one section of dynarig on a dory at 1:23 mark

Apparently Tom Perkins recently passed away. Many of you would have known, he was the owner of the Dyna-rigged sailing superyacht "Maltese Falcon" and several other yachts like "Andromeda La Dea" and "Dr. No".

There is a eulogy on https://www.symaltesefalcon.com/

And if you were a reader of Sailing Anarchy about a decade ago you will remember Tom Perkins for just 7 words...

I'll take the bait.....
What were those 7 words about? Link or context?

Couldn't find a link, but here's the very short version:

SA (with a reader demographic heavily skewed towards the racer, and not the megayacht crowd) wrote an article criticizing the Falcon for being ostentatious, obscenely expensive, and of questionable aesthetic value. Somehow that article found it's way onto the screen of Mr. Perkins. He wrote back with a very professionally worded, but equally scathing commentary on the value of SA, that amounted to a billionaires version of "My boat is bigger than your boat. Neener neener neener."

However, because of that article Mr. Perkins became a reader of the site... if only to see what they were saying about the Falcon. (At the same time SA was flattered that he was a reader, let alone that he bothered to write back.)

There were actually several exchanges over time where the editors of SA and Mr. Perkins softened towards each other... "frenemies", if you will. They kinda' realized that despite the huge gulf between the two parties, they had more in common than they thought. His attitude of "f--- it, I'll do it my way" was very much the SA way, and the whole reason for designing the Falcon's rig - he hated motoring his sail boat and wanted to avoid having to fire up the engines as much as he could - hit home with the SA staff and readers. Given that the Falcon sailed nearly 90% of the miles she covered at sea, they couldn't help but respect him.

I have heard many arguments for and against Maltese Falcon and its Dynarig. One may like the designs of Ken Freivokh or not. They are hardly within my personal bandwith of taste too but I do admire the rigg, its design, the actuating and controling mechanism with the software behind for reefing and tacking.

The hull itself, being physically more than 20 years old, may not be state of the art as far hydronamics and naval architecture are concerned and may be already aging as far as corrosion and wear and tear on the steel part but the boat in general is mostly very well cared-fore. On the other hand, Maltese Falcon is quite expensive to maintain. From what I hear, Maltese Falcon is a systemic sail eater. But in comparison to other larger Perini Navy sailboats and I know a few German colleagues with Perini Navi sailboats, Maltese Falcon has by far the highest percentage of pure sailing time, meaning without main engine use.

The sailing performance of this beast is far beyond any critique and still top of the line. My large sailboat is definitely not the slowest around but Maltese Falcon has smoked away from us with its all aspect rig more than once. One must have seen Maltese Falcon, sailing with full cloth into Antibes Harbor or Palma with foaming bow wave, turning all masts around, reefing all sails simultaneously and virtually stop. Really jaw dropping, I must say. Only a boat with a fully automated dynarig sail system can do that.

If I would be crazy enough to build one more large and modern design sailboat, it would have a dynarig, designed by the Dijkstra boys. It could be well possible, that my grown up children would then try to place me under disability, if do that. .

The yachting world should be thankful to have had a visionary man with the necessary resourses, like Tom Perkins, bringing this ground braking design into reality. Well done Tom Perkins, well done, indeed!

Just my 2 (Euro) cents

I've been away on a little holiday down to Boguete Panama, so I missed this news of his passing. I was just going thru my emails and saw this:

Obviously I was VERY taken in by this innovative design and project,....to the extent that I proposed a single-masted version on a catamaran.
http://www.runningtideyachts.com/dynarig/

As you said HTM09, so correctly

Brian, IMHO the Dynarig has the biggest potential for the propulsion of almost any type of boat. And this as the main propulsion for sailboats / yachts and as secondary or auxillary propulsion for commercial cargo or passenger vessels. Except for the Aero Rig (which in my opinion is not very pretty to look at),



it is the only real all aspect sailing gear for all type of boats. Even your ideas about game fishing under sail, this two rigs would be the only really usable (under all practical and financial aspects). And I also agree with You, that the dynarig and a catamaran of any size (the bigger the better) would be the perfect merge. For a large single mast dynarig, I have been told by the best naval architects on this field, a multihull is a must.

Together with my sons and our R&D departement in the company, we still have the dream of introducing the dynarig to commercial shipping.


Based on this Dykstra Design, a dynarig assisted ship or even as main propulsion, this configuration would make a perfect sail training ship, a great support or shadow ship for a larger sailing yacht or many special cargo versions are possible and last but not least a very stylish (and under the political correctness point of view of course) cruise ship.

All other wind based propulsions, like square riggers, boom riggers, ultra large schooners (SY "A") or wing sails, wind turbine / electrical or mechanical propulsion and kite assisted boats may have their niche but they are not really all aspect rigs and either dangerous in heavy weather or not really practical.

This would have been a perfect candidate for a large single or multi mast dynarig, the largest sailing catamaran Hemisphere.



I am absolutely sure, that we will see more dynarig type rigs on large yachts and other type of boats in the future. When the post fossil fuel aera begins, we have to use sails again anyhow.

Just my 2 (Euro) cents (Btw. I am not so sure about the future of this Euro and the whole EU also. Next Thursday will be the day, when the British People decide to cut their chains and have their island drift away from Europe towards the east coast of America or not. At least, they have the choice, democracy at its best.

"NAVIGARE NECESSE EST – Vivere non est necesse – Sed sine vita non navigamus"

There is one problem with the Dynarig on a catamaran that needs more study,....tacking problem. The catamaran (and most all multihulls) lack that vessel weight that will help carry them thru the tacking maneuver. Add to this that momentary 'squaring off' of the Dynarig profile during the moment of tacking, and there could be a problem.

If the Dynarig on the cat could be significantly lighter in weight that that of Falcon, so maybe it can be rotated faster. I also provided for a central centerboard to provide a more central pivot point for the vessel, rather than off-set boards in each hull. I also provided for a forestay, on which a furled headsail might provide for a momentary back-winding configuration that became a mainstay for tacking Hobie cats, etc.

I was looking at other alternative square rig ideas,...several thoughts here:
Square Rig Variations
Flexible Airfoil for both Tacks
Square Rig Pointing

...and I have a few more ideas to submit, but I have been away from these discussions and thoughts for quite awhile.

Brian, I am familiar with the disadvantages of multihulls. They are the only type of boat, I have the tendency to get seasick on . The giant masts of Maltese Falcon are obviously a bit slower, when shiftet around, than on a boat with smaller masts but still amazingly fast. And I have seen plans of a smaller single mast dynarig with a kind of running furling forestay (like the one used for a Code Zero or furling gennaker). I do not believe, that this would be necessary on an at least twin mast multihull, which would not have problems with slow tacking, if both hulls would have retractable centerboards, of which the outer one being raised during the swing.

Please google: The Maltese Falcon: the realisation, HISWA symposium 2004. The lecture can be downloaded as a PDF. It was a presentation, that was given by Gerard Dijkstra and his staff with Tom Perkins being present. I was attending this symposium and the presentation, very interesting, indeed. I must admit, even being in the design- and brainstorn phase of my present sailboat, some of that scientific stuff was a little bit above my IQ level and at that time the dynarig scared me away. My present boat is a conventionell Bermuda rigged Sloop

The big trick behind a multi mast dynarig seems to be the controlling and tactical software of the sailing system. I have controlling and monitoring software included in the autopilot / tactical system, watching the loads of the standing rigging and most lines on my sailboat but this software is quite rudimentary in comparison to the tactical sailing software of Maltese Falcon. Watching the movements of the three masts of Maltese Falcon during a tacking maneuver is really interesting and looks different from what a normal mortal sailor would expect. But the problem still seems to be, that the reefing system places a lot of wear and tear on the sails, thats why I call her a sail eater. But this beast can vitually break with her sails and sail backwards.

Not that my racing sails are lasting any longer but I have only 3 of them (not including the downwind sails, of course) .