Dear All:
The Falcon spent 20 hours visiting her home port in Malta (on her way to Italy for her “debut”), where a local photographer, Robert Weatherburn, took today's photos.
Normally yachts are not permitted to sail in the harbor, but our pilot was so taken with the big black bird, that he gave us special permission, and she is so easy to handle that we had no problems in our maneuvers. Doubtless we were the first square-rigger to sail out of Valletta in about 100 years.
We, literally, sailed every inch from Istanbul to Malta either beating to windward, or on close reaches. The wind varied from force 3 to force 7 and our speed averaged 10 knots, and was occasionally hitting 16 on the close reaches. We rotated our masts and unfurled and furled our sails, mostly the royals and t’gallants. as required by the wind strength, literally hundreds of times without a single fault. Christian, our athletic Spar Master, only went aloft twice, just to check on things---and probably also to enjoy the ride, from 190 feet above the waves.
We are obscenely proud of our new clipper yacht!
Best, Tom