Author(s): David A. Kaplan

Biography

Tom Perkins, the venture capitalist behind such companies as Google, Genentech, Amazon, and AOL, doesn't do things halfway. When he collected vintage cars, for instance, he had the world's largest collection of Bugatti automobiles. And when he decided to pursue a lifelong dream and build a sailing yacht, he went the whole nine yards: He decided it would be the world's largest yacht - big enough to fit Noah's Ark on its deck. He wanted it to sail at a record 26 knots, under unprecedented physical forces. And, he thought, having built this marine wonder, why not use it to try to smash the 155-year-old world sailing record from New York to San Francisco around Cape Horn? So Perkins built 'the perfect yacht' - as long as a football field, 42 feet wide, and with three masts so tall they will just fit under the great suspension bridges of the world. The Maltese Falcon, as he dubbed his ship, uses technology no clipper skipper ever imagined - a rig with no sheets, no stays, no halyards - just free-standing, rotating carbon fiber masts with 18 sails surging freely in the wind. At $130 million, it is a technological marvel - as complex as the man himself.