Last 2004 Cruise! Can you identify these yachts?

Sorry guys, I'm not giving up the answer. I've been waiting 18 months to catch one lurker with this.

Sorry for the delay Cognac. Got in late last night and had meetings in Lauderdale this morning.

I have a collection of yachting magazines dating back to the mid-90’s, but they are all in boxes since I moved. I saw the listing for this boat in one of these mags, but it’s been years since I’ve looked at it, so I can’t remember the exact details. I recall the boat was built about the same time that Richard Branson and Tom Gentry were chasing the Blue Riband trophy and I believe it was built for the same purpose, but I don’t recall who owned it. It could VERY WELL be Bernie Little, as he still had the need-for-speed and the ability to fund it. Plus, he had recently bought one of Howard Arneson’s turbine powered Skaters about this time too.

I had the honor of meeting Bernie Little. Actually, I had lunch with him inside his motorhome at the Miami Marine Stadium in 1985. No… I’m not that important. I was dating a little hottie named Suzie Vordermier, who’s father Alan, owned a 7-litre hydroplane named “Prime Mover”. He and Bernie were good friends from years on the hydroplane circuit. We spent lunchtime talking hydrodynamics, which was the reason Alan introduced me.

For our readers, a little history on the Blue Riband (by no means complete)…

In the early 1980’s, Richard Branson (Virgin Records, Airlines, etc) began building the first Atlantic Challenger, a boat specifically built to capture the Blue Riband trophy for the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing. The SS United States and the Queen Mary previously held this record. The first boat Branson built was the Atlantic Challenger I, which came fell short of the Cornwall coastline before joining Davy Jones locker.

Branson immediately built a successor, the Atlantic Challenger II, but Branson didn’t get the trophy because he failed to meet the Blue Riband criteria of crossing the Atlantic on it’s own fuel reserves. A few years later, around 1988, Azimut built an Atlantic Challenger, which attempted the crossing before withdrawing due to bad weather. In 1989, a truly fine gent and legendary offshore racer Tom Gentry built the Gentry Eagle and succeeded in capturing the title. One year later, a monster-size cat called the Hovercraft (or something like that) completed the crossing with a higher speed.

All of these attempts and successes were unique, but the one that really stood out (atleast to me) was in 1992 when the Donald Blount designed Destriero, a 220 foot offshore race boat on steroids smashed every record by nearly 2 days. Destriero held this title for 6 years, until the Danish ferry CatLink V came along and took the title in 1998. The latter wasn’t very exciting, unless you like to watch a parking garage in transit.

I had to dig like a dog, but I found my notes on the Falcon. It was originally commissioned for the Atlantic Challenge. The boat was built in the U.S. using a honeycomb aluminum lamination for reduced weight, along with surface drives and a bare bones interior. Basically, it was a floating fuel can.

I’ve been skirting this thread, but it’s time to come clean…

“Falcon 1” was 83 feet in length and built by Dan Johnston, a legendary name in very remote circles. Dan was the man behind the Navy’s Mark V program and his development career paralleled my own. We never actually met, but I was very familiar with his work, as we were both involved in military research throughout the 80’s.

Falcon One was originally built as a proof of concept platform to showcase a corrugated aluminum manufacturing process in conjunction with a special adhesive developed by 3M. This adhesive allowed the stringers and bulkheads to “float” on the hull’s skin, dampening vibration and insulating noise. Falcon Marine built the hull & superstructure in the 1980’s, but it was not finished until 1996. As Loren surmised, it was built on a New River yard.

Turbines with surface and/or jet drives were the original protocol and Dan planned to use the boat to gain publicity for the materials manufacturing process by going after the Blue Riband trophy. By the way… the Bernie Little part of this equation is… he was going to arrange for “other people’s money” to fund the pursuit of the Blue Riband trophy with Falcon One.

Fast forward nearly 10 years (nobody seems to know where the shell was laying during this time), a buyer comes along looking to build a high performance yacht very cheaply and finds this boat. He hires Juan Carlos Espinosa to finish out the interior. A pair of 16V92’s were dropped-in and connected to a pair of Rossi Surface Drives, which was fairly lame compared to the original protocol. The guy that had the boat finished-out ran into some money problems and sold the boat to Chris & Angie Merrill about two years ago. The boat is currently docked at the Marriott in Stuart.

Falcon 1 was the successor to a smaller and faster proof of concept vehicle: the Falcon 35, which was completed in the mid-1980’s. This boat was way ahead of its time, utilizing revolutionary technologies such as active canards for pitch stabilization. It was THIS boat that helped Dan gain military recognition and subsequent development contracts.

Although I never met Dan, I had always admired his work. Dan was one of the real geniuses in Naval Development. Thanks to JC Espinosa, who put me in touch with him, we spoke at length a few weeks ago. I went onboard the Falcon and have pictures I was going to post, but I simply have not had time. Even as I type, I’ve been in meetings most of the day on a project somewhat related to all of this… which is why I’ve been rather evasive.

I’ll try to post some pics of the Falcon when I return from my trip…

Carl

I forgot to add...

The Falcon 35 was a 135 mph boat! It was built at a time when the world's fastest offshore deep-v's could barely crack 100 mph. Remember Steve Stepp's claim to fame in 1984-1986... the world's fastest deep-v at 101 mph with the 30' Velocity? Nobody knew about the Falcon because it was quickly hushed by the Navy.

Falcon One would have been just as impressive. This boat is VERY, VERY light. The honeycomb aluminum weighs next to nothing. If it had been completed with triple turbine power, I have NO DOUBT this boat would have approached (or exceeded) 100 mph.

At current... she cruises at 34 knots and tops-out at 40 knots. Still pretty impressive for 83 feet and stock 16V92's!

Sorry for the delay, I've been playing catch up all week. I've uploaded the pics of the Falcon to the "New, Custom & Classic Forum". Here's the link...

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/new-custom-classic-unique-yacht/5432-falcon.html