Maltese Falcon

Maltese Falcon is a sailing experiment that worked. Her rig was developed by Dykstra Naval Architects from a German concept of the 1960s that had never been built, and it does away with stays and booms. In their place stand three carbon masts with no rigging to hold them up; each is 58 metres tall above the waterline and turns to face the wind. Fifteen square sails, about 2,400 square metres in all, roll out from inside the masts and are trimmed from a single panel, and a tack takes around a minute and a half.

That changes what a charter week feels like. On many large sailing yachts the canvas comes out for photographs; on this one the sails are simple enough to set that they get used, and the rig heels less than a conventional one in the same breeze, which guests below deck appreciate.

A refit of about six months at the Lusben yard, completed in 2023, changed the hull, once black, to Perini's own blue and reworked the spaces around the interior originally designed by Ken Freivokh. The main deck gained a cinema and a dining room in Japanese style, the outdoor dining area on that deck now sits under a hardtop with a bar, and the flybridge has a round sunbed that turns to follow the sun. On warm nights, films are projected onto the lowest sail.

The cabin plan has one quirk worth knowing. The VIP is not below deck with the others but up on the bridge deck, with its own terrace aft, while the full-beam master suite below has a gym next door. She holds a licence to charter in Spanish and Greek waters, and outside the Mediterranean season she moves to the Caribbean and the Bahamas.

She suits a group of up to twelve who are curious about sailing, whether experienced sailors or a family who want their children to see a ship of this kind at work. She is less suited to guests whose priority is a large beach club, a spa or a fleet of toys on the water: a motor yacht of the same length has more volume for all of that. And because a sailing itinerary depends on the wind, guests who are flexible about where they stop will get the most out of her.