Presentation at the Southampton University of the technical challenges solved for the construction and the completion of the rig of Maltese Falcon, the yacht with the most revolutionary sail plan in the last the fifty years.

Three carbon fibre masts and 58 meters of height, without any rigging, each one equipped with six yards of elegant curvature that maintain between them five square sails, in a modern and impressive version of the traditional square rig, will go beyond any style and technology exhibition that the exciting world of super yachts has been able to provide until now.
That will happen when Maltese Falcon, the latest yacht built by Perini Navi for the prolific owner Tom Perkins, will begin its journey throughout the Mediterranean; recent news indicate that it should be at the beginning of this summer, although last minute delays can not be discarded due to the yacht’s complexity, the requirements of the design and the adventure that the construction of such a ground-breaking, large and exclusive unit can bring about. The appointment that with no doubt Perkins will not fail to attend is the one of Saint Tropez and its regattas at the beginning of October, where with no doubt Maltese Falcon will exhibit its revolutionary sail plan and its stylish perfection. And many will be the followers and the curious ones that in fact will get down to that French port to come across it.
The yacht will be exceptional for the elaborated aesthetic work that Ken Freivokh’s design studio, of which our readers have already had some news, has produced. Facing a concept of a yacht that is completely different from anything else made until now, Freivokh made good use of all its creative energy and suggested to the owner a true range of stylistic achievements that will create an era: from an atrium with a staircase that culminates in a skylight, all of it on the location of the revolving main mast, to the innovating flags and navigation lights mast that, subtly placed on the overhang of the bow of the yacht, clearly informs of its size and its outstanding category.
But it is its completely unique and therefore totally innovating rig, that stands out the most on Maltese Falcon; and for that reason it was the subject of a technical presentation at the University of Southampton, whose naval architecture studies are well known, on behalf of the creator Gerry Dijkstra, Damon Rober ts responsible for the composite construction, and the representatives of the shipyard Perini Franco Torre and Vani Marchini.
The Dyna Rig concept has its origins in the work made during the sixties by the German engineer W. Prolls and was destined to reduce the fuel consumption and to increase the propulsion, in an economic way, for the merchant ships. It is in fact a modernized version of the rig for the square riggers used by the clippers, but when resorting to furlers and motors it does the work almost completely without those men who after climbing up to the rig manoeuvred the sails of those legendary ships. The masts of a Dyna Rig are solely sustained at their mast base and are free standing.The yards present a curvature that is calculated as being 12 percent of its cord. The sails unfold between a yard and its immediate superior one, so that when they are full they work together as a single profile, without interruptions all along their height.The sailcloth is furled inside the masts.As it lacks of standing rigging, there is no restriction in the angle that the yards can rotate. These are a unit with the mast and rotate together.
Due to the absence of rigging and to the neatness of the design, the aerodynamic efficiency is far better, and therefore the effectiveness of the rigging is very superior to the traditional one.

THE YARD ARMS CAN TURN ASIDE 3.5 METERS
According to the design that Gerry Dijkstra presented in Southampton the three masts of Maltese Falcon have six yards each one and sustain among them five sails that are furled in the corresponding compartments anticipated inside of the profile, with the entrance on their fore body, and above what traditionally was used as the mast to yard gooseneck.The curved shape of the yards has been studied to give to the sails the ideal depth in closed hauled wind angles.Thanks to it the new rigging will be able to sail at 45 degrees from the wind opposed to the 55 or 60 degrees of a traditional square rig.
The yards and their sails are a unit with the mast, in opposition to the traditional system that oriented them bracing the yards to one side or to another; it is the masts that rotate in their mast holes and orient all the sails simultaneously. It is necessary to insist once again that these masts lack of shrouds or any another rigging support and therefore all the energy transmitted through them is concentrated in the mast holes, provided with a bearing designed and specially made by SKF.That has lead also to study very well the reinforcements that the hull and the superstructure need. The torque moment calculated there is of 17.000.000 newton/m, equal to a jumbo airplane wing and the double of the one recorded on the support of a blade of a last generation Aeolian power station, with a length of 60 meters.
The pressure on the base is of 30 tons, slightly more than the weight of its own profile.This last figure is relatively low – let us remember that on a mast of a 30 meters sloop it would be normal to talk about 120 tons precisely thanks to the absence of rigging, and therefore the lack of compression.
Maltese Falcon masts do bend with the pressure of the wind and for that reason they absorb its energy, a bet that modern sailing had left aside and that reduces remarkably the efforts implied. Despite of it the calculated safety margins reach in most of the cases a factor that is superior to 3.The maximum deflection that is considered for the 58 meters high profiles is of 3.5 meters. As a safety measure a scenario where 58 knots of wind has been anticipated, and all the rig has been calculated in order to withstand in those conditions.
The furlers of the sails work by means of electrical motors that, along with the captive winches are destined to handle the clew of the sails, and are lodged in the trusses located in the forward face of the mast, at he height of each yard.. Each one of those trusses consists of a small cockpit where it is possible to stay on to manoeuvre, in case that the automatism might not work. The election of the electrical motorization versus the hydraulic one was easy for Perini, that uses it as standard in all the large sailboats of its make, granting them a great experience in the control of electrical mechanisms, the creation of networks, cabling and monitoring. Handling the sails normally, they are furled or unfurled from the steering position. Each operation takes approximately 75 seconds, which gives a manoeuvring speed that is much greater than the one of any manual rig known to date.The control system is, in the Perini style, with control screens but everything controlled by buttons and the traditional solenoids.