Exterior
Maltese Falcon was launched in 2006 as a commission for Thomas J. Perkins, and nothing about her reads as a conventional sailing yacht. She is 88 metres long with a 12.60-metre beam, built with a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, displacing more than 1,200 tonnes. What dominates the profile — and the horizon, when she is under sail — is the Falcon Rig: three freestanding carbon masts, each rising 58 metres above the waterline, developed by Perini Navi and Gerard Dijkstra & Partners. There is no standing rigging. The masts rotate on deck and keel bearings, the fifteen square sails furling and unfurling within the spars themselves. With approximately 2,400 square metres of sail area deployed, the yacht is capable of speeds above 20 knots under sail alone. It is a rig that owes nothing to sailing convention and everything to the ambition of a single owner who wanted a modern square-rigger and the engineering team that found a way to build one.
At the helm
The Falcon Rig is managed by an automated computer system that monitors wind parameters and displays data to the bridge in real time. An operator must activate all controls, but the degree of automation means the rig can be handled by a minimal crew complement relative to the sail area involved. Two Deutz TBD 620 main engines — 2,073 hp each — provide auxiliary propulsion, with a cruising speed under power of 14 knots and a range of 3,000 nautical miles on 100,000 litres of fuel. Nineteen crew operate the yacht, supported by more than 290 square metres of dedicated crew spaces below.
Performance
At 88 metres, Maltese Falcon is one of the largest sailing yachts in the world. The Falcon Rig produces a sail plan that functions as a set of single airfoils per mast rather than individual sails — the square sails set between the yards with no gaps when fully deployed, trimmed by rotating the masts rather than by sheeting individual sails. The result is a square-rigger that can sail upwind — a capability traditional square rigs do not have — and that responds to changing conditions with a speed and simplicity that belies the scale of the rig. Under engine she makes 14 knots on passage; under sail the performance is in another register entirely.
Below deck
The interiors are by Ken Freivokh Design. Across 432 square metres of guest accommodation, twelve guests are hosted in six staterooms including a full-beam owner's suite. The saloons extend to nearly 300 square metres, bathed in natural light through sweeping windows that run the length of the superstructure. At the centre of the main saloon a sculptural bar of polished steel and lacquer anchors the space, flanked by lounge corners and the symmetrically rising staircases that connect the accommodation decks. The dining area opens directly onto this saloon, making the whole main level read as a single continuous composition. Materials throughout counterpoint lustrous metal against dark woods and soft upholstery; the lighting is designed to treat the interior as something to be seen, not merely inhabited.
On deck
The cockpit extends to 339 square metres — a figure that only makes sense at 88 metres, and that in practice means an outdoor space large enough to function as a full al fresco living and dining environment regardless of how many guests are aboard. The GA plan shows multiple outdoor zones across the main deck: seating groups, a pool, tenders stowed port and starboard, and the clear runs of deck between the masts that give the yacht its characteristic sense of uninterrupted length. When the sails are set, the deck becomes something else entirely — a platform beneath 2,400 square metres of moving canvas, with the masts rotating overhead and the water accelerating past the hull.
History and notes
Maltese Falcon was the most celebrated Perini Navi ever built at her launch, and her impact on the industry was immediate: eight major awards in 2007, including Sailing Yacht of the Year and highest technical achievement from both Boat International and Showboats International. The Falcon Rig itself was a decades-in-the-making concept — originally proposed as a cargo ship fuel-saving system — realised here for the first time on a sailing yacht, at a scale that made it credible as performance technology rather than experiment. After Perkins, the yacht passed to new ownership and entered charter service. A refit was completed in 2016. She remains ithe yacht against which every large sailing commission is measured.
